


Child of the Sun and Moon

by Twilight_Enterprises



Series: Child of the Sun and Moon [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Ableism, Airbending & Airbenders, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Aromantic Toph Beifong, Asexual Toph Beifong, Asexual Zuko (Avatar), Azula Joins the Gaang (Avatar), Azulon (Avatar) Lives, Badass Azula (Avatar), Badass Hakoda (Avatar), Badass Katara (Avatar), Badass Lu Ten, Badass Sokka (Avatar), Badass Suki (Avatar), Badass Toph Beifong, Badass Zuko (Avatar), Big Brother Sokka (Avatar), Biromantic Zuko (Avatar), Bisexual Sokka (Avatar), Bisexual Suki (Avatar), Bullshitting Canon Lore, Creepy Zhao (Avatar), Demisexual Lu Ten (Avatar), Disabled Character, Earthbending & Earthbenders, Family Fluff, Firebending & Firebenders, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Hakoda (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Hakoda Adopts Zuko (Avatar), Happy Azula (Avatar), Homoromantic Lu Ten (Avatar), Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, Iroh (Avatar) loves Tea, Jet (Avatar) Is An Asshole, Kyoshi Warrior Azula (Avatar), Lesbian Azula (Avatar), Lu Ten (Avatar) Lives, Lu Ten (Avatar) is a good cousin, Minor Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Ozai (Avatar) Being a Terrible Parent, Ozai (Avatar) is an Asshole, Pansexual Aang (Avatar), Parental Hakoda (Avatar), Partially Blind Zuko (Avatar), Racism, Southern Water Tribe, Swearing, Toph Beifong and Zuko are Siblings, Ursa (Avatar) is a Good Parent, Water Tribe Zuko (Avatar), Waterbending & Waterbenders, Yue (Avatar) Lives, Zhao (Avatar) Is An Asshole, Zhao (Avatar) Lives, Zuko (Avatar) is a Good Brother, Zuko Joins The Gaang Early (Avatar), Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, dadkoda, just this fic, no beta we die like roku - stressed and attempting to fight a volcano, not a literal volcano though, which is arguably as daunting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28229268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_Enterprises/pseuds/Twilight_Enterprises
Summary: Furious that three-year-old Zuko's eyes lack the spark of firebending, Ozai threatens to kill him. Ursa argues in defense of her little turtleduck, and Ozai shows her just how cruel he can be.Ursa makes a decision.Her children aren't going to be raised anywhere near that monster.Or:Ursa recognises Ozai is abusive and gets her babies the hell out of there. Azula ends up a Kyoshi Warrior, and Zuko becomes part of the Southern Water Tribe.
Relationships: Aang & Toph Beifong & Katara & Sokka & Suki & Zuko, Aang & Zuko (Avatar), Azula & Hakoda (Avatar), Azula & Iroh (Avatar), Azula & Lu Ten, Azula & Suki (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Azula (Avatar) & Original Female Character(s), Azula (Avatar)/Original Female Character(s), Bato & Hakoda (Avatar), Bato/Hakoda (Avatar), Hakoda & Katara (Avatar), Hakoda & Sokka (Avatar), Hakoda & Suki (Avatar), Hakoda & The Gaang (Avatar), Hakoda & Zuko (Avatar), Hakoda/Kya (Avatar), Iroh & Lu Ten, Iroh & The Gaang (Avatar), Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Kanna & Everyone (Avatar), Katara & Zuko (Avatar), Lu Ten & Zuko, Lu Ten & the Gaang, Suki & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Yue (Avatar), Toph Beifong & Hakoda, Toph Beifong & Zuko, Ursa & Zuko (Avatar), Water Tribe & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Child of the Sun and Moon [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2150400
Comments: 108
Kudos: 499





	1. The Sun Will Shine Upon Us Again

**Author's Note:**

> Have I been reading too many Water Tribe!Zuko fics? Yes. Did I completely fall in love with them? Also yes. Does Zuko Angst basically write itself? Also also yes. 
> 
> I have the first three chapters written already, but the others are going to take quite a bit longer. The first two chapters are heavy on exposition, and are subsequently a bit repetitive, but it'll get better, I promise.
> 
> Also, am I completely bullshitting Avatar lore? You betcha. 
> 
> *Chapter 1 title is a Loki quote from Avengers: Infinity War.

The sky was dark when Princess Ursa of the Fire Nation snuck out of the room she shared with her husband, Prince Ozai, to leave a note on the bedside table of Ozai’s older brother, Iroh. 

The sky was dark when Ursa crept into the bedroom of her three year old son, and gently bundled him out of bed and into her arms. 

The sky was dark when Ursa slipped into the bedroom of her one year old daughter, and bundled her into her arms the same way. 

The sky was dark when Ursa took her babies and fled from the capital city to the nearest port.

The sky was dark when Ursa stowed her children in a boat and set sail from the Fire Nation, planning to never return. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when Ursa burned the boat on an Earth Kingdom beach. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when she sought out an Earth Kingdom sailor and begged him to take care of her children, because she didn’t think she could. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when the sailor agreed. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when Ursa began to cry, brokenly whispering that the boy was Zuko, her little turtleduck, with eyes the colour of Agni and a heart of peace, her Light Bringer. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when Ursa spoke about the girl, Azula, and how she was her little sabre toothed moose-lion, with eyes the colour of an erupting volcano and a heart of passion, her Guiding Light. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when the sailor took Ursa’s children and left. 

The sky was the colour of Ozai’s flames when Ozai found a note on Ursa’s pillow with seven simple words on it:

_ Your children will grow up despising you. _

The sky was light when Ursa finally fell, pressing her hand to the large, burning wound on her chest, hidden by her robe. 

The sky was light when she remembered how she got it; the argument with Ozai about how Zuko’s eyes lacked the spark of firebending. How he had Agni’s eyes. How Agni’s eyes weren’t enough without the spark. How the spark would come. How Zuko - her precious turtleduck - would be better off dead. The closest Ursa had ever come to bending fire herself. The pain. The promise everything would be better in the morning. 

The sky was light when she remembered the decision she’d made that night: she could not leave her babies with that monster. 

The sky was light when Ursa’s heart stopped beating. 

The sky was the colour of Zuko’s eyes when Iroh turned in for the night, exhausted after a long day of searching for his brother’s wife and children.

The sky was the colour of Zuko’s eyes when Iroh saw the hastily scribbled note on his bedside table. 

The sky was the colour of Zuko’s eyes when Iroh’s heart broke. 

The sky was the colour of Zuko’s eyes when the note was carefully folded and hidden amongst the Pai Sho letters from Piandao, so as to never reach Ozai’s gaze. 

The sky was the colour of Zuko’s eyes when Iroh realised the note made it sound like Ursa would be gone -  _ gone  _ gone - by the time he read it. 

_ Dearest Iroh,  _

_ I can never thank you enough for all you’ve done for me. After my arranged marriage to Ozai, you were really the only one who tried to make me feel like part of the family, and you passed that kindness onto your son. I just wish your kindness was enough.  _

_ Ozai and I have fought. He wishes to kill Zuko. I cannot allow that to happen. Ozai burned me horribly; he doesn’t know it yet, but doing so made this decision for me.  _

_ I cannot allow Zuko and Azula to grow up with this man, who, dare I say, does not deserve to be called such. If he is so willing to hurt his wife because she will not let him murder his own son, a child just turned three, then he will not hesitate to do much worse to my babies once I am gone.  _

_ I am taking them, and we are leaving. By the time you read this note, we shall be long gone.  _

_ I only ask this of you: should you ever find them, either by their return to the Fire Nation or your own travels, you will protect them from Ozai. I don’t expect them to know who they are, and I don’t expect them to need to. But if they do, I ask that you explain it to them gently and thoroughly. And to reassure them that their mother loves them more than anything else in this world.  _

_ Wherever they end up, I can only hope they are loved and well-cared for. _

_ I am so, so sorry, Iroh.  _

_ Your sister, _

_ Ursa.  _

The sky was dark when the Earth Kingdom sailor stopped on Kyoshi Island and met a ship from the Southern Water Tribe. 


	2. Only in the Dark Does the Moon Shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hakoda accidentally brings home a child. And decides he hates said child's biological father. And melts a little every time he looks at said child.

Hakoda, Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, prided himself of being rather unflappable. So when a sailor landed in the port of Kyoshi Island with two children he claimed were the children of Fire Nation nobles, Hakoda was ashamed to admit he nearly fainted. 

Bato, Hakoda’s best friend, was much less ashamed to admit it on Hakoda’s behalf. 

“Are you sure they are nobility?” Bonzu, one of the leaders of Kyoshi Island, asked. 

The sailor nodded. “I found this tucked into the blankets of the boy.” He produced a piece of paper, which he handed to Bonzu. 

Bonzu read it out loud.

_ “To whomever these children come into the hands of: my name is Ursa. I am a member of one of the most powerful noble families in the Fire Nation. These are my children. The boy is Zuko, he’s just turned three on the winter solstice. The girl is Azula, she’ll be two on the summer solstice.  _

_ Azula is a firebender. I think Zuko is, too, but according to my husband, he lacks the “spark.” Because of this, my husband and I fought. It was then my husband’s true nature was revealed to me. He is not a man, but a monster. He argued to kill his own son for supposedly being a non-bender. When I argued against it, my husband burned me. I do not expect to live to see the next sunset.  _

_ It is for this reason that I have taken my children away from the Fire Nation. I will not be able to protect them from my husband if I am dead, and since I do not have much time left, I wish to use it to bring my children to safety.  _

_ To whomever is reading this letter, please, I implore you, look after my babies.  _

_ I understand if you hate the Fire Nation. If you hate firebenders. But my children are just that - children. They aren’t even old enough to have memories yet. They may be children of Fire Nation nobility, but if they are raised away from that environment, I believe they may be able to help end the war and restore balance to the world. If nothing, I believe it is worth a try.  _

_ Please, if nothing else, make sure they are well-cared for and protected. If they are not, then my desperation to flee from the Fire Nation will have been for naught. _

_ Regards,  _

_ Ursa. _

_ Oh, and if you should ever encounter Crown Prince Iroh, please know that I trust him with the lives of my children. He will do his best to protect them from my husband, as well as explain anything you may be wondering about them.” _

They stood in silence for a moment.

“Well,” Hakoda said eventually, “that was… enlightening.”

Bonzu nodded in agreement. “Indeed. It is rare to see such thoughts from someone in the Fire Nation, especially one so important. I see no reason why we couldn’t keep the children… after all, Ursa is right. If they are raised away from the Fire Nation, they shall be spared the toxic propaganda and insistence that this war is justified.”

“Can you raise both of them, though?” the sailor asked. “Because that’s kind of important.”

Bato looked thoughtful. “We could each take one of them,” he suggested. 

“I don’t know, Bato,” Hakoda said. “They’re firebenders. They’re connected to the sun. The sun disappears for six months at a time during the summer at the South Pole. They might not survive.”

“Then we can take the boy, since he might not be a firebender. It’s the end of winter right now, so we can see how he adjusts to living at the pole, and when summer comes, we can see what happens. Worst case, we pray to the spirits and hope for a miracle.”

Bonzu took the girl from the sailor. “Then it’s settled, we raise Azula here on Kyoshi Island, and you raise Zuko at the South Pole.”

“Hold on,” Hakoda said, raising his hands. “Have we thought this through? Properly? Because what if there’s another raid? The Fire Nation would look at these children and see one of theirs, in the hands of their enemies! They may even recognise them, once they’re older!”

“They’ll probably think he’s half Fire Nation, half Water Tribe,” Bato replied. His face darkened. “You know it wouldn’t be impossible.”

Hakoda thought back to the last raid, and what had happened to one of their young women. No, it certainly wasn’t impossible. 

“All right,” he said finally. “We’ll take Zuko.”

And so they did. 

That was how Hakoda found himself holding the three year old Fire Nation noble, in his quarters of his ship, as the child in question woke up. 

Zuko really  _ did  _ have Agni’s eyes, and he really  _ didn’t  _ have the spark that Hakoda had seen in the eyes of the firebenders that had raided the tribe a few years ago. 

“Mama?” Zuko whispered, yawning. 

Hakoda’s breath caught in his throat.  _ Spirits,  _ the boy was  _ adorable.  _ How could Ursa’s husband want to kill such a pure being as this child, bender or not?

“Your mama isn’t here right now, Zuko,” he said. 

His tiny brows furrowed. “Oh. Why?”

Hakoda forced himself to look calm. “She had something she needed to do. You’re gonna stay with me until she gets back, okay?”

“Okay.” After a moment, Zuko seemed to realise something and wriggled slightly. “Who awe you?”

_ Tui and La, he can’t say his “r’s” right… this child is going to be the death of me,  _ Hakoda thought. 

“My name is Hakoda,” he said. 

Zuko’s adorable little nose scrunched up in concentration. “Ha… ha…”

“Hakoda.”

“...Oda.”

Close enough. 

Zuko whimpered suddenly, and Hakoda was struck with a thought. 

“You must be hungry,” he said, smiling slightly when Zuko nodded. “Well, we have some fish you can try. I don’t know if you’ll like it, though.”

The kid’s entire face lit up, and Hakoda’s heart melted. He figured Ursa’s husband probably didn’t have a heart, otherwise it would have melted, too. 

Hakoda blithely wondered, as he carried Zuko to the galley, if Sokka would be this adorable in a year. 

Probably. He already was, after all. 

He set Zuko down on the table and picked up some of the leftover fish from dinner earlier. He cut off a small piece and offered it to Zuko, who accepted it with the greed of a toddler who hadn’t eaten all day. Which, Hakoda supposed, was exactly what Zuko was. 

Seconds later, Zuko made a face. 

Hakoda grinned. “Don’t like it?”

“It’s icky,” Zuko declared. 

“I’ll admit it’s a bit of an acquired taste. Most people don’t cook their fish like we do.” 

It was true - only the Water Tribes fried them in sea prune juice. 

Zuko licked the offending fish thoughtfully. “It’s too bowing,” he said.

Hakoda’s eyebrow twitched. “It’s…  _ boring?”  _

Zuko nodded, as if this was common knowledge. “Not enough spice.”

Ah. Well, that wasn’t what he’d expected, but it wasn’t entirely surprising. The Fire Nation was known for their natural spice tolerance (and subsequently spicy food), firebenders in particular. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to not having spice. We don’t know how long your mum will take to do what she needs to do, so you could be staying with us for a while.”

“Oh.” 

There was too much understanding on that child’s face. 

“Whewe awe we going?”

Hakoda smiled. It felt more like a grimace. “To the Southern Water Tribe.”

He hated lying to the kid, but death wasn’t really a concept one explains to a three year old. 

He dreaded the day he had to tell the truth. 

Hakoda was excitedly greeted by a hurtling blur of blue as soon as he stepped off his ship.

Said blur of blue stopped abruptly as Sokka fell flat on his face, since he had not yet mastered walking. 

After a short moment of concern, which ended when Sokka leapt to his feet and continued barrelling forward, Hakoda couldn’t help but chuckle. 

“Someone’s excited,” a familiar voice said dryly. Kya, Hakoda’s wife, was holding their one year old daughter, Katara, and smiling serenely. 

“And you’re not?” Hakoda replied, one hand on his chest. “I’m wounded, my love.”

Kya snorted, joining Sokka at Hakoda’s side. “Sometimes I wonder if we have three children instead of two.”

Ah. Perfect opportunity, then. 

“Er, about that-”

_ “Hakoda!  _ You’re not implying what I think you’re implying, are you?”

“What?! No, of course not! I just…” He gestured helplessly behind him, where Zuko was nervously lingering with one hand clinging to Bato’s parka. “I accidentally adopted one?”

Kya peered at Zuko curiously. “He’s not from any of the Water Tribes,” she noted. 

Hakoda barely resisted the urge to smirk. “Well spotted, Chief Kya of the Obvious Water Tribe.”

She smacked him. “Oh, shut up, Chief Hakoda of the Dumbass Water Tribe.”

“Ha ha. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m officially the Chief of the Wolf Water Tribe. So there.”

“I’m seriously wondering if I have four children instead of three.”

Hakoda felt as though a weight had been suddenly lifted from his shoulders. Hearing Kya accept Zuko as her own, despite knowing absolutely nothing about him, was relieving. But he had some introductions to make. 

“Kya,” he said, “this is Zuko. According to the note he came with, he’s Fire Nation nobility.”

Kya merely raised an eyebrow. “That’s not something you hear every day.”

Hakoda shrugged, gesturing for Zuko to come closer. The boy latched himself on to Hakoda’s leg. “Zuko, this is Kya, my wife. She and I are going to look after you until your mama comes back, okay?”

Zuko nodded, and then he and Sokka were introducing themselves with awkward, half-developed speech, which was arguably the cutest thing Hakoda had ever seen. But he couldn’t just bask in the cuteness; he shot a meaningful look at Kya, who, sadly, understood exactly what he was telling her.

It was the same look he sent her every time someone was killed by a firebender.

Kya knew Zuko’s mother was dead. She tightened her grip on Katara with one arm, and reached out to Zuko with the other.

“Why don’t we get you some warmer clothes, Zuko? We wouldn’t want you to freeze.”

Hakoda thanked the spirits for his wonderful, amazing wife.

Sokka tugged on the hem of his parka, drawing his attention. “Dada, ith Thu-o gonna thtay wif uth?”

Between Sokka’s lisp and Zuko’s inability to say his “r’s,” Hakoda was certain he would have heart failure before the age of thirty. Which… only left him five years. Damn it. Why were children so utterly adorable?

“Yeah, kiddo,” he said, scooping his son into his arms and eliciting a giggle. “He is.”

All things considered, Zuko settled into the family - and the South Pole - pretty well. There was something odd about his behaviour, though, something Hakoda found very concerning. 

Whenever Zuko was caught breaking a rule, he would look at his feet, apologise in a manner clearly trying to hide his inability to say his “r’s,” and then throw himself into Kya’s arms as soon as Hakoda accepted the apology. 

That wasn’t the concerning part. Sure, it stung a little, but Hakoda knew he was rather more frightening that Kya was, especially from a child’s perspective. It was the fact that the first - and only, he’d been consciously avoiding doing it again - time Hakoda had raised his voice, Zuko had flinched. 

Violently. 

So violently, in fact, that if Hakoda didn’t have a sense of what Zuko’s father had been like from Ursa’s letter, he’d have thought the boy should have fallen over. But he didn’t, and Hakoda knew  _ exactly  _ why. Because falling over would have made his punishment worse. 

Hakoda knew next to nothing about Zuko’s father, but Ursa’s letter was enough for him to dislike the man immediately. He couldn’t imagine ever raising his hand against Kya, or wanting to kill Sokka for not being a waterbender. Or, more accurately, he couldn’t imagine wanting to kill Katara for being a waterbender when he himself wasn’t. 

Seeing Zuko so clearly terrified of him in those circumstances? Knowing Zuko’s father had no issues hurting his wife? 

Yeah, it wasn’t too hard to put two and two together. 

Hakoda was  _ very  _ tempted to sneak into the Fire Nation and commit some murder. 

Said murder would be easier if he actually knew who Zuko’s father was, but he supposed it wouldn’t be too difficult to find out if he mentioned Ursa’s name. After all, the letter  _ did  _ say they were nobility… 

To Hakoda’s partial dismay and partial relief, his murder-plotting was interrupted by the reason for the murder in question. Zuko was tugging on the leg of Hakoda’s trousers, his face barely visible through the fur lining the hood of his parka. 

“Oda,” he said quietly, almost nervously, “Sokka twipped and fell over and cut his knee on your knife.”

Hakoda’s dad instincts kicked in, and he gently lifted Zuko into his arms. “How’d he trip?”

Zuko, if possible, seemed to burrow further into his parka as they started moving. “We wewe - we wewe playing, and I pushed him and I’m sow-sowrwry.”

“It’s okay, Embers. If you were playing, that means it was an accident. It wasn’t your fault. Now, there’s my little warrior.”

Zuko looked confused, and Hakoda himself was a bit confused, by the nickname.  _ Embers.  _ It just sort of slipped out. But they’d reached Sokka, who was gripping his leg and wailing like he was dying. Hakoda set Zuko down on the snow and carefully pried Sokka’s hands away from the cut. It wasn’t very big, as Hakoda’s knife wasn’t very big - it was really only big enough to cut rope, since it was more of a tool than a weapon - but he’d cut himself with it before, and knew how unpleasant it was. 

Especially if you were two and had, understandably, no pain tolerance. 

Sokka cried accordingly. 

Hakoda carefully cleaned and bandaged the cut, praising Sokka on how strong he was being at every whimper and flinch. 

“There, see?” he said when he was finished. “All done. You’ll be good as new in no time. You two be more careful when you’re playing, all right?”

Sokka and Zuko both nodded quickly. 

Hakoda also nodded, though for a different reason.  _ Note to self, don’t leave knives lying around. Bad Idea. Children exist and have no spatial awareness.  _

But for now, a crisis had been averted (not much of a crisis - it was a tiny cut, not very deep, and it was Sokka. If it had been Katara the whole village would have known - Tui and La could that girl scream). 

All was well in the Wolf Water Tribe. 


	3. And So We Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things must come to an end. It would just be nice if there was less fire involved.

Seven years had passed since Zuko had joined them. He’d long since stopped flinching from Hakoda after breaking the rules, and actively did his best to help everyone in the village, despite being only ten years old, and despite the fact that he was incredibly lethargic and sedentary during the dark, summer months. 

These were not the only developments Zuko had made, as they discovered on the Winter Solstice when he turned seven. 

Katara, who was five at the time, had been arguing with Sokka about something pointless. Sokka said something that took Katara’s anger from 10 to 100 in roughly two seconds, and she started screeching at him. 

Zuko had tried to intervene and calm them down, being the responsible oldest sibling that he was. He was met with the revelation that Katara was a waterbender, as she ignored him and kept screeching at Sokka until the snow mound he’d been standing on exploded. 

Zuko was so surprised that he sneezed.

And fire came out of his nose. 

It had become a recurring problem since, one that unfortunately most people in the village found quite funny. 

Whenever Zuko was startled enough, he would sneeze fire. It was, for the most part, entertaining. Except for that one time he’d been braiding Katara’s hair and Sokka snuck up on him. The resulting sneeze set Katara’s hair ablaze, and as soon as they’d put it out she stomped her foot and shouted at Sokka, which then led to Sokka becoming a snowman. 

People stopped startling Zuko after that. 

Hakoda and Kya had, at first, been terrified for their children, and still were. If the Fire Nation ever raided again, Katara and Zuko would be targeted for their bending. Katara, as a waterbender, would be taken prisoner and never seen again. Zuko, as a firebender, would likely be taken and brainwashed to join the Fire Lord. 

But it didn’t stop them from being the proudest parents in the world, with three incredibly talented children. Once they’d explained to Zuko, Sokka, and Katara that Zuko’s firebending wasn’t evil, because Zuko wasn’t evil, Sokka had immediately asked Zuko if he could roast their sea prunes. It took some trying, but Zuko eventually managed it. 

Since there were no benders of any kind in the village, there was no one to teach Zuko and Katara how to use or control their power. This wasn’t so much an issue for Katara, whose power really only showed itself when she was truly angry (not a common occurrence), but for Zuko? It was quite a bit more difficult. His power would flare up any time he felt  _ any  _ intense emotion, be it anger, fear, pain, sadness, excitement, or joy. Since he felt the latter two quite regularly… well, it led to Gran-Gran and Zuko looking into ways to learn to control his bending. 

They’d quickly discovered that breath was very effective, and so Zuko soon began meditating with a candle for ten minutes every morning to keep from accidentally burning things when he did literally anything fun. This also prevented the shock sneezes. Or, more accurately, it prevented the  _ fiery  _ shock sneezes. He still sneezed when he was startled. Hakoda still found it adorable. 

But Zuko and Katara had been bending for three years, and Sokka and Zuko were making great progress with their boomerang throwing. 

Right now, though, Katara and Sokka were playing outside and Zuko, eager-to-please child he was, was helping Kya repair some clothing that had been torn during the last hunt. 

That was when the snow turned black.

They heard the shouts of their own warriors, then the accusations of Fire Nation soldiers. 

Kya hurriedly set down her stitching and snatched Zuko’s away. “Embers, love, you need to hide, all right?”

“Wha - Mum-”

“We’re going to play a game of hide and seek, Zuko,” she said, drawing him into her arms and squeezing him tightly. She pretended it wasn’t the first time he’d called her  _ mum.  _ “Don’t come out until Hakoda returns, okay?”

Zuko wriggled. “But Mum, I’m too old to play hide and seek! I’m ten!”

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and tucked him behind the clothes-changing curtain at the back of the igloo. “I know, baby, but I want to play hide and seek. Can you do that for me?”

“Yeah, but-”

“Hush, Embers.”

So he hushed. He hushed and watched the scary Fire Nation man demand to know the location of the waterbender. 

_ Katara? They’re looking for Katara?  _

He watched as Katara herself entered the igloo, and Kya sent her to find Hakoda. 

He watched as Kya told the scary Fire Nation man that  _ she  _ was the waterbender, and he watched her burn. 

It took all of his self control to stay hidden and not scream, because he told her he would stay behind the curtain until Hakoda came back. 

He watched the man leave, and wondered what would have happened if he’d burned the man the way the man had burned Kya. 

Because Kya wasn’t moving. And the air smelled worse than that one time he and Sokka had accidentally found a rotting, half-eaten tiger seal carcass floating next to one of the boats. 

And then Katara returned, and screamed. Seconds later, Hakoda ran in, and promptly fell to his knees. 

He’d never forget the look of utter horror and despair on Hakoda’s face. 

So he stumbled out from behind the curtain, flopped into Hakoda’s arms, and let his tears fall. 

The nightmares started immediately, and it didn’t look like they’d be going away anytime soon. Every night, Zuko woke with a cry on the tip of his tongue that never quite made any noise, the image of Kya’s burning body imprinted into his eyes. 

Katara wasn’t much better. She couldn’t get the image of the charred remains of her mother out of her mind, but she was much louder about it. Zuko had promised Kya he would stay silent and out of sight, and his dreams reflected that. Katara had made no such promises, and woke up screaming. 

Out of all three of Hakoda’s children, only Sokka wasn’t plagued by nightmares, but even he started to panic if Hakoda, Zuko, or Katara were out of his sight. 

Bato was proving invaluable. Hakoda didn’t think he’d be able to do much in the way of anything without Bato, who made sure Hakoda got out of bed in the morning, and held one of the nightmare-ridden children while Hakoda held the other, and started teaching Zuko proper combat on the days Hakoda just didn’t feel up to it. 

Zuko’s morning meditation had gone from ten minutes to twenty, and he had more discipline with it than Hakoda had thought any ten year old capable of. 

Perhaps it was the fact that Zuko was a quiet person to start with, or the fact that Katara expressed her grief so openly; maybe it was Hakoda’s own grief, blinding him; but whatever it was, Hakoda didn’t notice until too late that Zuko was getting sick. 

Bato did. But he’d written it off as Zuko’s way of expressing grief, and didn’t realise that it was a bit more serious than that. 

Hakoda and Bato sat at Zuko’s bedside, while Sokka and Katara were with Gran-Gran. 

“I’m a terrible father,” Hakoda moaned, burying his face in Bato’s parka. 

Bato huffed. “No, you’re not. You’re grieving, Hakoda, you’re allowed to not notice things. If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine, since I saw all the signs and ignored them.”

“’S not your fault.”

“Then it’s not yours either.”

Hakoda pulled himself out of Bato’s arms and rested the back of his hand on Zuko’s forehead. Almost instantly he recoiled. “I know he’s normally warmer than the rest of us, but I have no idea how high a fever he’s running right now. Is it minor? Is he melting? I don’t know!” he said, growing increasingly agitated. 

Bato shrugged. “I wish I could tell you, Koda.” He ran a hand down his face. “Do you think it might be tied to his bending?”

“...Is that possible? Can bending make you sick?”

“Well, I did notice that he’s been meditating without a candle since the raid. You don’t think…”

“I don’t think what.”

“...You don’t think - well, he watched it happen, Koda - you don’t think he’s maybe developed an aversion to fire?”

Hakoda stared at Zuko’s flushed, sweat-soaked face. “Fuck.”

“Koda?”

“That’s gotta be it,” Hakoda said. “Hold that thought.” He raced out of the igloo and over to his mother’s, where Sokka and Katara were curled together under a blanket, sleeping more peacefully than they had in weeks. Gran-Gran looked up at his entrance.

“Hello, Hakoda,” she said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought you were staying with Zuko?”

“Hi, Mum - I have a question about bending.”

Gran-Gran crossed her arms. 

Hakoda hesitated. Now that he was here, it seemed a bit more far-fetched. “Er - is it possible, if you actively stop yourself from using your bending, to make yourself sick?”

Gran-Gran’s face fell. “You think Zuko is suppressing his Inner Flame.” At Hakoda’s nod, she sighed. “Yes, unfortunately, it is possible. Suppression Sickness can range in intensity from a simple cold to complete loss of sanity or death. Zuko’s condition suggests a rather intense case for his age, especially since it’s the first time it’s happened. Benders always survive the first case of Suppression Sickness, since it’s more of a warning than anything else. It’s the recurring cases that cause issues. Every time a bender develops Suppression Sickness, it gets more intense. That’s why Zuko’s case being as intense as it is currently is worrying. He’s never had Suppression Sickness before; he must have been trying  _ very  _ hard to suppress his Inner Flame.”

“Bato thinks that because he saw Kya…” Hakoda shook himself to rid his mind of the fragments of happy memories of her, now all tinged with sadness. “Because he saw Kya burn to death, he developed an aversion to fire.”

“That is a likely cause,” Gran-Gran said. “But if that is the reason, Hakoda, then you must remind your son that he is not evil, and his element is not evil, else he will develop Suppression Sickness again, and quite probably die from it.”

Hakoda nodded. “Thank you, Mother.” He gave her a brief, tight hug, before returning to his own igloo and informing Bato of everything he’d just learned. 

Bato cursed. Violently. 

In the days that followed, Hakoda felt like Zuko had gone back to the timid three year old he’d been when he first arrived in the Southern Water Tribe. Only now, there was no Kya to hide behind. 

He and Bato had been regularly and frequently telling Zuko that his bending didn’t make him like the man who murdered Kya, but it didn’t seem to have much effect on his mental state. 

It wasn’t until Zuko snapped at them that they learned the true reason for his continued aversion to his own power. 

“Stop telling me my firebending isn’t evil!” he shouted. “Stop telling me  _ I’m  _ not evil! Because it is, and I am! If I wasn’t then  _ this  _ wouldn’t happen!” He lit a small fire between two of his fingers and tossed it at the nearest fishing net. It promptly went up in flames. 

Katara, standing nearby, screamed and started crying.

Zuko hugged himself, tucking his hands securely under his arms. “That never used to happen. If I’m not evil then why is Katara so afraid of me?”

“Oh, Embers,” Hakoda whispered. He sent a meaningful look at Katara, and Bato went to calm her down. Hakoda then pulled his son into his arms, rocking back and forth gently like a boat on smooth waters when Zuko dissolved into his own tears. “I know you don’t believe it, but you’re  _ not  _ evil. Let me prove it?”

There was a minute nod. 

Hakoda let out a tiny sigh of relief. “All right. I want you to imagine something for me, okay? We live on an island farther north, where it doesn’t snow as much. You’re a waterbender, and Katara is a firebender. Then, one day, the bad men attacked. They were looking for the firebender. Your mother told them it was her, and they used their waterbending to freeze her to death. Would that make our Katara evil?”

“No.”

“Right. And would it make all waterbending evil?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Zuko leaned away slightly, frowning. “Because water is life,” he said. “We drink it and we sail on it and we build homes out of snow.”

Hakoda nodded. “You’re absolutely right. But water is death, too.” He almost smiled at Zuko’s confused expression. “Think about how quickly we need to warm people up when they fall in the freezing water. Or how Torrik fell off a boat one day and we never saw him again. Or the people who go missing during snowstorms.”

“Okay,” Zuko said slowly. “But I still don’t understand.”

“Well, let me put it this way: fire is death, yes? It’s hot and burning and destroying. But fire is life, believe it or not. It warms us up when we fall in the water, it keeps us warm during the long nights, and it gives us light in the darkness, guides us home in storms. Does that make sense?”

Zuko looked thoughtful. “I think so.”

Hakoda smiled. “Are you feeling better about your firebending?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Because your firebending is a blessing, Embers. It’s just a blessing from Agni, instead of a blessing from Tui like Katara’s waterbending.”

Zuko tucked his hands under his arms again. “Katara’s still afraid of me,” he said. 

Hakoda sighed. “That’s true. I’ll give her the same talk I gave you. She’ll come around. She’s just sensitive right now.”

Zuko nodded, and nestled himself back into Hakoda’s chest. 

Holding his son close, Hakoda sent a silent prayer to Tui and La - and Agni - to protect his children from the horrors of war they had not yet seen.


	4. But Ice Can Burn Like Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zuko does not have a fun time, and Sokka just wants to prove himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided that fourteen is Ice Dodging age. Mostly because I wanted Zuko to go before the warriors left. Also, I've been imagining Zuko wearing his hair like Hakoda's.

Sea prunes. Stewed sea prunes. Stewed sea prunes with just enough Earth Kingdom spices. Katara’s spiced sea prune stew. 

What a lovely smell to wake up to. 

“...Happy birthday, Embers!”

Zuko smiled. “Morning, Oda.” 

He opened his eyes. Hakoda was sitting next to his bed, holding a bowl of stew. 

“Katara made your favourite. After all, it’s not every day a young man turns fourteen.”

Zuko’s smile widened as he rolled out of bed. “Does that mean I finally get to go Ice Dodging?”

Hakoda matched his grin. “It most certainly does. We’ll go after breakfast. Sound good?”

“Sounds brilliant.”

“Eat up, kiddo.” Hakoda patted him on the shoulder. “Sokka and Katara are outside. I think Sokka said something about a gift, but I’m not supposed to tell you about it…”

Zuko snorted. “Good job, then.”

Hakoda shrugged. “Just act surprised.”

“Will do.”

“I’m going to go help Bato set up the boat. Enjoy your breakfast!” Hakoda went to leave.

“No premarital hand-holding!” Zuko called.

Hakoda turned around, looking affronted. “Distrust from my own son! I’m wounded, Embers, truly!”

Zuko laughed. He hurriedly ate his stew, absently noting that Katara was getting really good at balancing the spices just right, and went outside. And was immediately knocked over by his brother tackling him. 

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZUKO!” Sokka shouted.

“Ow - uh, thanks, Sokka,” Zuko said, rubbing his ear. 

Katara managed to persuade Sokka to let him up, then hugged him herself. “I hope the spiced sea prune stew was good. I haven’t made it in a while…”

Zuko affectionately tugged on her hair loopies. “It gets better every time you make it, Katara.”

Katara beamed. 

And then a small package was being shoved under his nose. 

“I made you a thing!” Sokka announced, giving the package a slight shake. “Open it, open it, open it!”

Zuko took the package, squinting suspiciously at Sokka. “Are you sure you’re thirteen?”

Sokka squawked like an indignant puffin-gull. Zuko ruffled his hair, grinning. He opened the package, revealing two rough, misshapen blue beads. 

“I carved them, and Katara painted them,” Sokka explained. “Because you already have a bead for Dad on your first braid, but your second braid’s just empty.”

Zuko made a soft  _ oh  _ noise and quickly untied the end of his second braid so Sokka could put the beads on. 

“Now you’re all ready to go Ice Dodging!” Katara cried, clapping happily. 

“Yeah! Can I come too, Zuko? I’m ready to go Ice Dodging!” Sokka said. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to! I’ll be the best crewman you could ask for!”

“Sorry, buddy,” Zuko said. “You know it’s not up to me. Besides, you’re still too young.”

Sokka pouted. “But I’m  _ ready!  _ I can prove it!”

Zuko sighed. “Of course you’re ready, but there’s _tradition_ involved, Sokka. You know they had to convince the elders to let me go. Firebender, and all.” 

Sokka crossed his arms, but nodded. Katara shot him a concerned glance, before smiling at Zuko.

“We’ll be waiting here for you! When you get back you’ll be a proper man of the Tribe!” she said brightly. 

Zuko couldn’t help but return her smile. He ruffled Sokka’s hair again, then started towards the boats. 

“Gah, you’re so  _ annoying!”  _ Sokka complained.

“I’m your big brother, it’s my job,” he called back. 

_ “Ugh!”  _

The boat was a standard warship. Zuko’s crew consisted of the three youngest adults in the village, who were seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen respectively. 

Hakoda would be coming along for assessment purposes. 

Bato would be joining him for anti-bias purposes (this, however, was not entirely true. Bato was just as biased as Hakoda. He was just there to hold Hakoda’s hand. Zuko wasn’t going to judge. He secretly wished to have someone who followed him around for the sole purpose of holding his hand and telling him he was an idiot. Which seemed to be Bato’s entire existence when he wasn’t actively being the chief’s second in command).

“Embers!”

Ah, yes. He was supposed to be focusing, wasn’t he. 

Hakoda grinned at him. “Nice beads. Anyway, you’ll be skippering. We’ll go out a certain distance, then I’ll tell you to turn around and bring us back, okay?”

Zuko nodded, and then they were off. 

He was stubbornly  _ not  _ going to admit how nervous he was about doing this. He hadn’t meditated that morning, and he probably should’ve, but there was just too much depending on how this went - 

_ Deep breaths, Zuko. They aren’t going to kick you out if you can’t do it. They’re not like that.  _

_...Are they?  _

He shook himself. He was being stupid. If they didn’t throw him out for being a firebender after Kya’s death, then they wouldn’t throw him out for failing Ice Dodging. 

_ You just won’t belong. And they’ll know it. They’ve known it since the raid. You’re not one of them, and you never will be, you’re an  _ ashmaker - 

“Shut up,” Zuko muttered. Ice Dodging would be a piece of seal jerky compared to stopping Sokka from doing something stupid. 

Now that they were out on the water, the whole thing suddenly seemed a lot more daunting. 

...It was going to be a  _ lot  _ harder than stopping Sokka from doing something stupid. 

The ice was moving, because of course it was. Spirits, what he wouldn’t give to be a waterbender right about now. 

Hang on. Waterbending. That gave him an idea. It was not the best idea he’d ever had, but it was also far from the worst.

His morning meditation, but backwards. 

Instead of reaching out to the heat of his candle, what if he reached out to the  _ absence  _ of heat in the ice floes? That could work, right?

Answer: no. No, it could not. 

“Okay, hard a port!”

Thank La his crew had all done this before. They’d have hit that ice floe otherwise. 

But he’d found his rhythm now, and suddenly skippering the warship was  _ just like  _ his meditation. 

Ice floe off the port bow? Breathe, and tilt the tiller to the right. Ice floe on a collision course? Breathe, order the sail to be let out ever so slightly to catch more wind and pick up speed. 

“All right, Zuko, now bring us home!” Hakoda said. 

It was a piece of seal jerky. 

He returned to the village bearing the mark of the resourceful on his forehead, and the mark of acceptance -  _ real  _ acceptance, not just “the chief adopted you and we have to listen to him” - in his heart. 

It was three weeks before the other shoe dropped. 

“We’ve decided to aid the Earth Kingdom in the fight against the Fire Nation,” Hakoda announced at dinner. 

“So you’ll provide them with weapons, then?” Gran-Gran said. 

Hakoda grimaced, and Bato patted him on the shoulder supportively. “No, Mother. We’re going to fight.”

Katara’s plate clattered to the ground. 

“It wasn’t an easy decision to make,” Hakoda explained hurriedly. “We’ve spent most of the last two weeks talking about it, and we - the warriors, that is - all agree that the war needs to come to an end, and we need to do our part. We can’t - we can’t let what happened to Kya happen to anyone else.”

All of the flames in the igloo flared. 

Zuko forced himself to stay calm, despite the fact that he knew that last argument was more for show than actual belief. Because the Fire Nation thought Kya had been the last waterbender, so they wouldn’t be coming back for another one any time soon. The  _ real  _ argument, the one Hakoda didn’t want to say in front of his children, was that their family had the biggest target over heads - two benders and a very protective middle child - should the Fire Nation return, and he didn’t want to be unable to protect them the way he’d been unable to protect Kya. So he was going to try to prevent the Fire Nation from ever returning.

Zuko knew the feeling. 

And so it was, four days later, that Hakoda pulled him aside in the shadow of one of the ships. 

“I know you’re a proper man of the tribe by tradition standards,” Hakoda said, “but I need you to stay here, Embers.”

Zuko nodded. He was disappointed, but not surprised. 

Hakoda smiled softly. “Thank you, Zuko. Once we’re gone, it’ll be up to you and Sokka to protect the village. But there’s something else I need you to do for me, all right?”

“Yeah?”

“If the Fire Nation  _ does  _ come back, I need you to prioritise protecting yourself and Katara. Sokka is a nonbender, and he can look after himself. But you and Katara will be targeted for your bending, and I don’t need to remind you of what that means.”

Zuko hugged him. “You’ll come back. Okay? You have to come back.”

“Oh, Embers,” Hakoda murmured. “I love you.”

He didn’t say he would come back. 

“I love you too, Oda.”

Zuko watched as Hakoda had a similar conversation with Sokka, who was much more adamant about going than Zuko was. 

They all watched from the end of the dock as the boats disappeared over the horizon. 

If Zuko had to meditate to use his firebending to heat the air around them so they could stay out later than was usually safe, he didn’t say anything. 

A year passed, and it was now Sokka’s fourteenth birthday. And Zuko was helping Katara make Sokka’s favourite food,  _ roasted  _ sea prune stew, while frantically brainstorming a rite of passage for Sokka with Gran-Gran. 

“You could go Ice Dodging in a canoe?” Gran-Gran suggested.

Zuko shook his head. “Nah, it’s not Ice Dodging if you’re not doing it in a warship. Doing it in a canoe wouldn’t be special, since we technically go Ice Dodging in a canoe every time we go fishing.”

“Why don’t you go on a special hunting trip, then?” Katara said. “Pass the sea prunes, please.”

“A hunting trip could work,” Gran-Gran agreed.

Zuko passed Katara the bowl of sea prunes he’d been roasting with his firebending. “I guess that’s what we’ll do, then.”

A few minutes later, Sokka finally woke up, and was immediately met by a chorus of “Happy birthday,” a bowl of roasted sea prune stew, and a large package. 

“Thanks, guys,” Sokka said. “Do I finally get to go Ice Dodging, Zuko?”

“Er - no, sorry.”

Sokka’s face fell, and he hunched over his bowl of stew. “Oh. Okay.”

Zuko sighed. “It’s just a little hard to go Ice Dodging without a warship. We’re going on a special hunting trip instead.”

Instantly, Sokka brightened again, and began devouring his stew. Once he’d finished, he stood up and grabbed Zuko’s arm. “Can we go now? How long will it be? Will we need to pack anything-”

“Slow down, buddy,” Zuko chuckled. “You’re not even going to open your present?”

Sokka gasped, like he’d just committed the worst sort of blasphemy. He nodded solemnly, and carefully picked up the package and started unwrapping it. He gasped again, but this time it was out of excitement. 

“A new boomerang! Thank you, Zuko!” He hugged the boomerang like his life depended on it. 

Zuko smiled. “Your old one was getting a bit small for you to use effectively. Besides, a proper boomerang is the traditional gift for a young man who has just successfully gone Ice Dodging. Since we can’t do that, I figured you could use it on our hunt.”

And then Sokka was hugging  _ him.  _ And the boomerang. Zuko politely ignored the fact that the boomerang was digging into his gut.

“So… anything in particular we’re looking for?” Sokka asked.

“Nah. Just whatever we find the tracks of first.”

“Cool, cool.”

For a while, the only sound was the crunching of the snow under their feet. 

Then Sokka was tugging on Zuko’s sleeve and pointing to a trail of pawprints.

“Look! We can catch that, right?”

Zuko knelt next to the prints. “Uh… no. No, we can’t.”

Sokka frowned. “Why not?”

“Because these are polar bear dog prints, Sokka. Our dinner would eat us for lunch.”

“I think we can take on a polar bear dog.”

“We most certainly can  _ not  _ \- Sokka, what are you - no, Sokka, come back!”

But Sokka was already running off after the beast that made the prints, boomerang and machete at the ready.

Zuko cursed, and chased after him. 

It wasn’t hard to find Sokka and the polar bear dog, regardless of tracks in the snow. All he had to do was listen for the roaring periodically interspersed with the shouts of an idiotic fourteen year old boy. 

Because  _ of course  _ Sokka was already fighting one of the most dangerous animals in the South Pole. 

And  _ of course  _ Sokka was in over his head, and  _ of course  _ the polar bear dog was about to rip Sokka’s face off-

-and  _ of course  _ Zuko couldn’t let that happen-

And then there was pain. 

He heard himself cry out, and Sokka screaming at the polar bear dog, as if from a distance. He pressed his hands to the left side of his face, because that was what you were supposed to do, right? To stop bleeding? 

Because he was bleeding. Sokka was dragging him along through the snow, and he was leaving a trail of red. That was bad, right? Zuko was pretty sure that was bad. 

Sokka was saying something. He sounded really upset. Zuko should probably listen. 

“-I’m sorry, you were right, I should’ve listened to you, I just wanted to prove myself-”

“Idiot,” Zuko muttered. 

Sokka froze. And stared. He kind of looked like an Earth Kingdom elephant-koi. He was also clearly not going to say anything else any time soon. 

Zuko blinked at him. Was the sun going down? It was still winter, the sun wasn’t supposed to be going down. “You don’t have anything to prove.”

And then Sokka faded away into darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Cause... y'know... he's not Zuko without some kind of scar...


	5. Any Way the Wind Blows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Katara breaks an iceberg, Sokka is suspicious, Zuko is a Tired Big Brother (TM), Someone is a bit of a goofball, Someone Else is angsty, and A Different Someone Else just wants a nice cup of tea. And Another Different Someone Else is a creeeeeeeeeep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? We've finally made it to the start of the show! You can probably guess who "Someone," "Someone Else," "A Different Someone Else," and "Another Different Someone Else" are. I wasn't trying too hard to hide it.   
> Also, we're covering like three episodes in this chapter, so it'll probably be a lot longer than the first four. 
> 
> *Chapter title is the last line of Bohemian Rhapsody

Zuko spent a year relearning how to exist. Gran-Gran had said his eye was actually fine, since he’d closed his eyes when the polar bear dog attacked, but because he needed to keep his eye closed while the wounds healed, the scar tissue that formed sealed his eyelid shut. He was lucky, he supposed, that the claws had missed his ear (even if they only missed by about half a centimeter) and his nose (the side of which was not unscathed, but it still worked just fine). 

But he still had absolutely no depth perception for six months after the accident. He used this to his advantage, whenever Sokka felt particularly guilty about the whole thing, by intentionally walking into things just to make his little brother laugh. 

None of them laughed very much anymore, anyway. 

Once he finally had some semblance of depth perception back, he spent the next six months training with Sokka to be at least mostly capable in a combat situation. Or a hunting situation. 

His blindspot was massive, and it sucked. 

One thing hadn’t changed, though - Sokka and Katara were still constantly getting on each other’s nerves, with Katara somehow always splashing Sokka when practicing her waterbending, and Sokka being stubbornly misogynistic, and both of them had a knack for finding themselves in…  _ odd  _ situations. 

So when a bright light emanated from the area those two had gone fishing in, Zuko wished he could say he was surprised. 

Instead he just shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, because knowing his luck, Sokka and Katara had just accidentally signaled the Fire Nation with their shenanigans. 

Zuko didn’t know just how right he was.

On a Fire Navy vessel, much closer to the village than anyone would’ve liked, a pair of amber eyes saw the same light Zuko had. 

The owner of the eyes turned around to look at an old man on the deck behind him, one eyebrow raised. 

The old man sighed. “We are in the South Pole, my son,” he said. “Lights like that are a common occurrence here.”

The younger man crossed his arms. 

“You’ve been hunting the Avatar for two and a half years, Lu Ten, and we’ve never found anything. What makes you so sure that this time we will?”

Lu Ten scowled. He nodded to one of the crewmen and pointed in the direction of the light.

The crewman saluted. “Setting a course to the light, Prince Lu Ten.”

The old man sighed again. “At the very least, you should get some rest. A man needs his rest.”

Lu Ten shook his head. 

“Your ancestors have all failed to capture the Avatar, and you will too, if you’re unrested,” the old man pointed out. “And that’s assuming we find him at all.”

Lu Ten’s scowl deepened, and he gestured accusingly with his right arm. It would have been more effective if his right arm didn’t abruptly stop just above where his elbow was supposed to be. 

The old man’s face became saddened. “I know capturing the Avatar is the only way to prove your worth to your grandfather, but-”

Lu Ten ignored him and stormed to the other side of the ship. 

“All right, what did you two do this time?” Zuko asked, crossing his arms. He pointedly did  _ not  _ look at the massive wall of fluff standing behind Sokka, or the unconscious boy in Katara’s arms. 

As expected, both Sokka and Katara immediately started blaming each other. 

“Sokka couldn’t steer the canoe-”

“Katara should have waterbended us out of trouble-”

“-and then he said it was because I’m a  _ girl-”  _

“-and she cracked the whole freaking iceberg and this menace shot out of it-”

“-Aang’s an airbender!”

Zuko held up his hands, and they both immediately shut up. “Did you just say he’s an  _ airbender?”  _

Katara nodded.

“But they’ve been dead for a hundred years.”

“Well, he  _ was  _ frozen in an iceberg…”

“I still think he’s a Fire Nation spy!” Sokka put in. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “Does he look like me?” He sighed at their confused expressions. “I mean does he have gold eyes? Is he abnormally warm? Is his skin as pale as mine?”

“Er - his eyes are kind of brownish-grey,” Sokka admitted after a moment. “And his skin is a bit darker than yours. But Katara says he’s pretty warm!”

“Katara says everyone is warm, Sokka. She’s a waterbender. She runs cold.”

Sokka wilted. 

Katara grinned smugly. “See? I told you he’s not Fire Nation. Now, I’m going to tuck him in. He’s asleep.” 

And off she went, taking the mysterious airbender with her. A few moments later, she returned. 

“So what do we do now?” Sokka asked.

“We talk to Gran-Gran, obviously,” Zuko said. “If anyone will have a sensible idea for moving forward, it’s her.”

“Aang, this is the entire village!” Katara said brightly. “Entire village, this is Aang!”

Sokka scowled. Zuko huffed a laugh and patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. 

Aang bowed, and about half of the village shied away from him. 

“Did Appa sneeze on me?” Aang asked quietly. He hurriedly twisted himself like an arctic fox-cat in an attempt to locate any bison snot. 

Gran-Gran stepped forward. “Please forgive our wariness,” she said. “Airbenders have been absent from the world for one hundred years. We believed them to be extinct.”

Aang’s eyes widened slightly, and Zuko winced. As much as he loved and respected his Gran-Gran, she could have been a little bit more tactful there. 

“Extinct?” Aang whispered.

“This is my grandmother,” Katara said quickly. 

Gran-Gran smiled. “Call me Gran-Gran.”

Zuko facepalmed. Trust Gran-Gran to adopt the random airbender Katara found in an iceberg. Though, he supposed, Hakoda had to get it from somewhere. Otherwise Zuko wouldn’t be there, facepalming. 

Sokka had apparently had enough, and snatched Aang’s staff. “This is a pretty lame spear,” he said. “It’d be useless at stabbing.”

“That’s because it’s not a  _ spear,  _ Sokka,” Zuko informed him. “It’s a staff. You’re not supposed to stab people with it, you’re supposed to  _ hit  _ people with it.”

Aang reclaimed his staff with a burst of air. “Actually, you’re not supposed to hit people with it, either. It’s for airbending!” He did…  _ something,  _ and two sets of wings - a big pair and a small pair - opened. 

Sokka recoiled. Zuko resisted the urge to facepalm again. 

One of the little girls squealed in excitement. “Do the magic trick again!”

Aang grinned. “Not magic, airbending!” He moved his staff to mimic flight. “By manipulating the air currents around my glider, I can fly!”

“You know, last time I checked, humans can’t fly!” Sokka snapped.

“Check again!” Aang launched himself into the air with a gust of wind, and began flying around them in circles. 

After a few seconds, the majority of the villagers were watching in awe, even some of the most cantankerous elders. So Aang - being like, twelve or something - decided to fly with his eyes closed. 

Zuko sighed. Twelve year old Sokka had been a menace, and somehow he doubted Aang was much better. 

Sure enough, Aang collided head first with Sokka’s snow watchtower. 

Which Sokka immediately tried to salvage, while everyone else made sure Aang was okay. And Sokka got buried. Zuko couldn’t bring himself to be surprised. Or particularly worried. 

“Time-wasting benders,” Sokka muttered irritably. 

Zuko snorted. He watched Aang excitedly talk to Katara about her waterbending, before Gran-Gran called Katara away to do chores. And he watched as Aang stuck his tongue to his staff to amuse the toddlers, then failed to get it off. 

Ah, well. The kid could solve his own problems. 

Which was how Zuko found himself traipsing over to help while internally cursing his Big Brother Instincts. 

“All right, come here,” he said, with just the barest hint of exasperation. When Aang complied, he gripped the staff as close to Aang’s tongue as he could without touching it, took a deep breath, and carefully channeled his bending into his palms. Once the staff was warm enough, Aang’s tongue practically shot back into his mouth. 

“Wow, thanks!” Aang cried. “Are you a firebender?”

Zuko nodded. 

“What are you doing in the South Pole?”

_ He’s a kid, he doesn’t know any better, don’t get mad.  _ “I live here.”

Aang looked concerned. “You must not have lived here for very long. The sun sets for weeks at a time in the summer, you know.”

_ Deep breaths, just like meditation. Don’t get mad.  _ “I know. I’ve lived here for thirteen years,” Zuko said. 

“Oh. Wait, how old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“You’ve been here since you were three?” Aang’s eyes were almost comically large. “Don’t your parents know you’re a firebender?”

_ MEDITATION MEDITATION DON’T GET MAD.  _ “They do, yes.”

“And they make you live here anyway? Even though you’re cut off from the sun for so long in the summer?”

Zuko gritted his teeth. “I’m adopted. I don’t know who my biological parents were, and I was too young to remember them when I came to live here. But yes, my adoptive parents know I’m a firebender, and they worried about it a lot when I was younger.”

Aang looked a bit taken aback. “Oh. What happened to your face?” 

Zuko stared at him. He looked sheepish, and a bit stunned, as though he hadn’t meant to blurt that out. 

Zuko snorted. “I was protecting my idiot little brother from an angry polar bear dog.”

“You have a little brother?”

“And a sister. You’ve met them. Sokka and Katara?”

Aang looked like he might faint. 

“Almost, but not quite.”

Lu Ten groaned. The two soldiers he’d been sparring with bowed and took their leave with bows and mutterings of, “General Iroh. Prince Lu Ten.”

Iroh eyed him critically. “You are still standing like you have two arms,” he said. “We’ve modified the forms to get around that, but they don’t work if you don’t adjust your stance to match.”

Lu Ten exhaled sharply, a puff of flame shooting out of his mouth. 

“I know it’s cold,” Iroh replied, “and I know you’re annoyed, but you’ll never regain your status as a master if you don’t remember to fix your stance!”

Lu Ten shot a small burst of flame to the left of his father’s head. 

“No. I will not drill you on the advanced forms until you fix your stance.”

He put his hand on his hip. They had a brief staring contest, which Lu Ten won through sheer stubbornness, before Iroh conceded.

“All right. I will drill you on the advanced forms. As soon as I’ve finished my roast duck.”

Lu Ten nearly set the roast duck in question on fire, just to see if Iroh still wanted to finish it if it was a charred mess, but settled for shooting a nearby iceberg instead. 

“...What are you doing.”

“Teaching them what it means to be a warrior of the tribe!” Sokka replied indignantly. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose for what felt like the millionth time that day. “Sokka, they’re five.”

“They’re all we have!”

“They’re kids. You and I didn’t start training until we were ten.”

“But-” Sokka was cut off by one of the boys raising his hand. “Yes?”

“I need to pee,” the boy squeaked. 

Zuko resisted the urge to laugh. “Go on,” he said. 

The boy started to get up, but was stopped by Sokka shaking his head. “Nuh-uh, you’re  _ warriors  _ now. That means no pee breaks.” He frowned. “How many of you need to go?”

All of them raised their hands. Zuko failed to resist the urge to laugh. Sokka glared at him. 

“Go on,” Zuko said again, and the boys marched towards the outhouse. 

Sokka facepalmed. 

“Hey, you two,” Katara said, appearing as if from nowhere. Zuko really wondered how she did that. “Have you seen Aang?”

As if on cue, Aang emerged from the outhouse, declaring, “Wow! Everything freezes in there!”

Zuko had forgotten how disgusting twelve year old boys were on principle. 

The little boys laughed, and Zuko uncomfortably remembered finding bathroom humour to be hilarious when he was five.

Sokka, however, was less than thrilled with Aang for a different reason. “Go away!” he snapped. “This lesson is for warriors only!”

The little boys laughed more, and Sokka and Zuko followed the sound to see the boys - and Aang - using the bison’s tail as a slide. Zuko blithely noted that he should really learn the bison’s name.

“Stop!” Sokka cried, and grabbed the back of Aang’s tunic. “You’re distracting my warriors with fun and games! We can’t afford to have fun and games because of the war! What if we’re attacked?!”

Aang slid off of the bison’s head, looking shocked. “There’s a war?”

Sokka’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding, right?”

Aang opened his mouth to reply, then abruptly turned and raced off after something that looked vaguely like an otter-penguin. 

“...He  _ was  _ kidding, right?” Sokka repeated. 

“We don’t know how long he was in that iceberg,” Zuko said softly, while Katara just frowned. 

“...Please tell me I’m not seeing what I think I’m seeing,” Sokka said sometime later, after Katara had followed Aang. 

Zuko, tracking the flare’s movement with his eye, growled. “They went to the wreck.”

Sokka cursed.

Lu Ten lowered his spyglass to tap one of the crewmen on the shoulder and level him with a glare.

“I’ll wake the general right away, Your Highness,” the crewman said, and hurried off. 

Lu Ten raised the spyglass again, watching two figures dart across the snow and into a tiny village. 

_ “What did you think you were doing?!”  _ Zuko demanded. “There was a Fire Navy vessel nearby! They’re on their way here right now! Do I need to remind you what happened  _ last time  _ the Fire Nation showed up?!”

Katara flinched, and Zuko’s anger vanished. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I made a promise to protect you from them, Katara, and it’s really hard to do that if you’re reckless. Especially since it’s just me and Sokka protecting the entire village.”

Katara nodded guiltily. 

“It’s  _ his  _ fault,” Sokka snapped, pointing accusingly at Aang. “If he hadn’t come here, Katara would never have gone to the wreck in the first place!”

The elders murmured in agreement. 

Sokka crossed his arms. “I say we banish him.”

This received louder murmurs of agreement from the elders. 

“We can’t!” Katara protested.

“Sokka is right, Katara,” Gran-Gran said gently. “He has put the whole tribe at risk.”

Katara turned to Zuko beseechingly. 

He shook his head. “Safety of the tribe comes first, Katara. You know that.”

Gran-Gran sighed. “Aang is hereby banished from the Wolf Water Tribe.”

Katara was fuming. “Then - then you’ll have to banish me, too! He promised to take me to the Northern Water Tribe so I could learn waterbending!”

“Would you really choose  _ him  _ over your family, Katara?” Sokka asked. 

“I don’t want to come between you and your family,” Aang said quietly. 

Katara gazed at him sadly for a moment, before hugging herself and turning away. “Fine. I’ll stay.”

Aang hopped up on the bison’s head and took off. 

The silence lasted all of fifteen seconds. 

Then Katara snapped at Gran-Gran about how Aang might have been her only chance to learn waterbending. 

Now, Zuko could tolerate many things, but people hurting Gran-Gran’s feelings so she ended up with that pained expression? That was not one of them. 

“Hey, you think I don’t want to learn how to firebend properly?” he said, and Katara froze. “Believe me, I understand your desire to go north and learn waterbending, and you might get a chance in the future! But right now, the tribe is what matters, Katara. We’re all that’s left. You’re the  _ last  _ waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. Losing you would mean losing hope of things ever getting better.”

Katara hunched her shoulders and kept walking away. 

Zuko shook his head and went to help Sokka prepare for the impending raid. 

It felt weird to be wearing warpaint with one eye permanently closed, but Sokka had done a pretty good job of painting Zuko’s eyelid to look like it was open, so the enemy wouldn’t know he was half blind. 

The ship destroyed Sokka’s snow battlements simply by approaching. Sokka and Zuko quickly stepped back to avoid being crushed by the ramp descending from the ship, but held their weapons steady. 

A small group of soldiers emerged, led by a man who looked to be in his mid twenties. He wore a heavy cloak over his right shoulder. 

Sokka charged, club raised above his head. The man sent him flying back with a mere two hits. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken in a long time. 

“Where is the Avatar?” 

No one replied. 

The man grabbed Gran-Gran. “He’d be around this age.”

Sokka charged again, and the man kicked him in the gut. 

Zuko attacked then, and had a bit more success. His machete raked across the man’s bicep, causing him to release Gran-Gran, and then Sokka’s boomerang smacked into the back of his head. 

The man raised his hand, calling forth a flame, and was about to throw it when - 

Was that  _ Aang?  _ On the back of an  _ otter-penguin?  _

Apparently it was. 

Aang sent a wave of snow at the Fire Nation soldiers with his airbending. “Looking for me?”

“You’re the Avatar?” 

At least the man sounded surprised. 

“But you’re a kid!”

_ But he was frozen for a hundred years,  _ Zuko thought, and suddenly Aang made a lot more sense. 

“You’re not that old either,” Aang replied.

The man growled and launched a series of fireballs at him. Aang deflected them all, but faltered when one almost hit the little girl who’d asked about the magic trick earlier. 

“If I surrender will you leave them alone?”

The man relaxed. He nodded. 

Aang nodded back. 

“Aang, no! Katara cried.

He smiled at her, and the soldiers led him onto the ship. 

“We need to rescue him,” Katara said, roughly an hour later. “It’s our fault he was captured, and he was protecting us.”

“Katara-”

“No, Sokka, you’ve been against him the whole time! We owe him-”

Zuko placed his hands on their shoulders calmingly. “You’re both nuts. Sokka’s been preparing a canoe, Katara. If Aang really is the Avatar, then he’s the world’s last chance to stand up to the Fire Nation. And he’ll need all the help he can get.”

“Besides,” Sokka said, grinning, “didn’t you say he promised to help you learn waterbending?”

Katara’s smile was as bright as the sun reflecting off the snow. 

Someone cleared their throat behind them, and they all turned to see Gran-Gran looking at them disapprovingly. 

“What do you three think you’re doing? You’ll need these!” She held up an armful of bedrolls. “You have a long journey ahead of you. I want to thank you, Katara, for restoring my hope.” 

Katara hugged her. 

Gran-Gran then turned to Sokka. “You be nice to her, young man.”

Sokka raised his hands in surrender, and Gran-Gran addressed Zuko.

“Make good on your promise to your father,” she told him. “I expect great things from all of you. Your destinies are now tied to Aang’s.”

They nodded, thanked her, and then eyed their canoe skeptically. 

“We’ll never catch a Fire Navy vessel with this,” Katara said.

As if on cue, Appa - since apparently that was the bison’s name - let out a growl and lumbered towards them. 

Katara’s face lit up, and she ran towards the giant fluff monster.

“You just love taking me out of my comfort zone, don’t you?” Sokka muttered. 

Zuko laughed. 

“...How do we get this thing to fly, again?” Zuko asked. 

Appa was swimming, and not very quickly. They would never catch up to the ship at this rate. 

“Come on,” Katara muttered. 

Sokka snorted. He was reclined against the rim of the saddle. “Yeah, Appa. Fly!” 

This had no effect, so Sokka continued lazily throwing out commands. 

“Up! Elevate! Yap! Yop! Yip! Yip yip!”

That was it. 

Appa grunted and lifted into the air. Sokka’s grumpiness at being on a bison in the first place was quickly overshadowed by his excitement at  _ flying -  _ that is, until he saw Katara smirking at him. Zuko had to cover his mouth to hide his grin. 

“There it is!” Katara announced. 

Sure enough, the ship was sailing along in front of them, and -  _ hang on.  _

“Is that Aang?” Zuko asked, leaning as far over the edge of the saddle as he dared. 

It was indeed Aang, attempting to fly away, but the man grabbed his ankle. The sudden tripling in weight caused them both to come crashing down, resulting in the man’s cloak falling off his right shoulder. 

Huh. He only had half an arm on that side. Interesting. 

Interesting, but not worthy of pity. Sympathy, yes, but not pity. Zuko was pretty sure that if he could regain his skill as a warrior within a year of losing half of his sight, then the man could definitely kick their asses with one arm. 

Zuko was satisfied to note, however, that Appa’s appearance had distracted the man. But it had distracted Aang too, and the man recovered quicker. 

He shot a blast of fire at Aang, who managed to block it, but the force knocked him unconscious. And over the side of the ship. Into the water.

“No!” Katara cried. 

Something beneath the surface of the waves began to glow, and Zuko felt a sudden urge to pray to La that it was friendly. 

It was Aang. In the Avatar State. Just casually  _ waterbending himself out of the ocean.  _ Because, y’know, that was normal. 

Appa landed on the deck, and Zuko, Sokka, and Katara slid off of him. 

Katara hurried to check if Aang was okay, while Sokka and Zuko set themselves as a barrier between them and the soldiers. 

Once Katara said Aang would be all right, Sokka grabbed Aang’s staff and jabbed the man on the head with it when he tried to take it back. 

Some of the soldiers began to advance. Katara, acting on instinct more than anything else, quickly used the water on the deck to freeze them in place. 

“Oh, gee, thanks, Katara,” Sokka snapped. The ice had caught one of his legs, too. Zuko managed to break the ice with Sokka’s club, and the three of them - plus Aang, whom Katara was supporting - climbed back onto Appa. 

“Yip yip!”

And off they went. Zuko positioned himself at the back of the saddle, just in case. 

The man - and an older man who had just come up on deck - sent a joint blast of flame up at Appa. Aang was still half asleep.

Zuko took a deep breath.  _ Just like meditation. Reach out for the heat of the flame -  _ there it was -  _ grab it  _ \- the fire was  _ his  _ now -  _ and control it.  _

He thrust his arms out, and the fireball slammed into the nearby ice cliff, which came crashing down on the bow of the ship. 

Zuko rather felt like taking a leaf out of Aang’s book and  _ sleeping.  _

Lu Ten stared after the bison. That wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. There was no way…

“I know you’re disappointed, my son, but lingering on the Avatar’s escape will do you more harm than good,” Iroh said sagely. 

Lu Ten shook his head and produced a small flame. 

“You think they have a firebender?”

A nod.

Iroh frowned. “But that’s impossible.”

“Until today,” Lu Ten said hoarsely, “so was catching the Avatar.”

He went to help his crew unfreeze themselves. 

“How did you manage such advanced waterbending?” Katara asked. “I thought you said you didn’t know how!”

Aang looked at his lap. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to waterbend. It just sort of happened?”

Katara pursed her lips. “Okay. But why did you pretend you didn’t know the Avatar?”

“...Because I never wanted to be.”

“The world needs you, you know,” she said gently. “You’ll have to learn how to bend water, earth, and fire. We might be able to find a waterbending teacher at the north pole…”

At that, Aang brightened. “We can learn waterbending together!”

Katara smiled. “Yeah. Sokka?”

Sokka shrugged. “I’m in if it means I get to beat up some Fire Nation assholes. Zuko?”

They all looked expectantly at the oldest member of their group. 

“Oh,” Katara said. “He’s asleep.”

Aang laughed. 

“We will finish the repairs as quickly as possible, Your Highness,” Lieutenant Jee promised. 

Lu Ten nodded in approval. He didn’t want to stay at this harbour any longer than he needed to. The Avatar would be gaining a valuable head start. And this harbour was  _ Zhao’s  _ harbour. The sooner they were gone, the better.

“Ah! General Iroh, Prince Lu Ten. Welcome to my harbour. To what do I owe the visit?”

_ Shit.  _ Lu Ten turned to face his least favourite member of the Fire Navy, a fake smile plastered on his face. 

“Greetings, Captain Zhao. We’ve stopped in for repairs,” Iroh explained cheerily. 

Zhao looked at their ship. “It’s Commander, now,” he corrected. “It seems you’ve suffered a great deal of damage. What happened?”

Lu Ten looked at Iroh. Iroh looked at Lu Ten. Lu Ten made a  _ go on  _ gesture. Iroh sighed.

“We had a collision with an Earth Kingdom vessel.”

“...I see.” 

Spirits, Lu Ten hated Zhao and his slimy voice and inflated ego and his complete disregard for the fact that both Iroh and Lu Ten technically outranked him. 

“Join me for a drink?”

_ Say no say no say no say no -  _

“We’d love to!”

_ Damn it, Dad.  _

“The Southern Air Temple is beautiful,” Aang said. “It’s got the best views, and there’s an airball court-”

“Aang,” Katara interrupted, “a lot can happen in a hundred years.”

Aang grinned. “Yeah! I bet they’ve come up with some  _ even more  _ fun stuff to do!”

“She means there’s a reason no one has seen an airbender in a century,” Zuko said bluntly. 

“I’m sure they’re just in hiding. The Air Nomads are pacifictic, so if they thought they were in danger they would just try to avoid it. Besides, the only way to get to the Southern Air Temple is by flying!”

Katara, Sokka, and Zuko exchanged a worried glance behind Aang’s back. 

“Look! There it is!”

This wasn’t going to end well.

Did Zhao really think that plan would take the Earth Kingdom down? It was a worse idea than that one time Lu Ten had presented his dad with Hot Leaf Juice instead of tea. 

Which, speaking of Hot Leaf Juice, seemed to be what they were drinking. Honestly, had anyone on Zhao’s crew brewed a cup of tea in their  _ lives?  _

Lu Ten suspected not. 

“You doubt my plan, Prince Lu Ten?” Zhao asked.

Lu Ten merely raised an eyebrow. 

Zhao smirked a spirits-damned, hair-raisingly slimy smirk. “How has your search for the Avatar been going?”

Lu Ten glared at him. 

“As unsuccessful as I expected,” Zhao said, and his voice oozed around the tent. 

And then he asked for information on  _ leads.  _

_ As if I’d ever tell you anything.  _

Lu Ten stood, bowing mockingly, before exiting. 

Or attempting to exit.

One of Zhao’s men was blocking the entrance to the tent. 

A different guard entered, claiming to have interrogated the crew, and learned that the Avatar had been in custody, but had escaped. 

“I see,” Zhao said, his tone not unlike oil. “Remind me, Prince Lu Ten, how your ship was damaged?”

“Where is everyone?” Aang asked quietly. He’d given them a tour of the temple, and no one else seemed to be there. 

“Why don’t we play a game of airball?” Sokka suggested quickly. 

“Okay!”

And so they did. Zuko and Katara watched from the ground as Aang kicked Sokka’s ass at airball, since Sokka wasn’t an airbender. The game ended with Sokka being sent tumbling into a pile of snow. 

Zuko went to help him up, and froze.

“What?” Sokka sat up, and his gaze quickly landed on what Zuko was staring at. 

An antique Fire Nation helmet. 

“We need to show him,” Zuko whispered. “We can’t keep letting him live in a deluded fantasy where his people are okay.”

“That’ll hurt.”

“Lying will hurt him more in the long run.”

Sokka sighed. “You’re right.” He glanced at Aang, happily air-scootering around the airball court, and sighed again. “But maybe it can wait until the end of the day.”

Zuko nodded, and Katara asked Aang if they could continue the tour. 

Aang excitedly agreed, and soon they were standing in front of a statue.

“This is Monk Gyatso!” he informed them. “He was my guardian. Kind of like a dad.” He stared at Statue-Gyatso for a moment longer before jumping. “Oh! Come with me!”

He led them to a fancy-looking door. “Gyatso told me there was someone in here who would help me become a better Avatar.”

“I don’t know if anyone could have survived in there for a hundred years, Aang,” Katara said doubtfully. 

“I survived in an iceberg for a hundred years,” Aang pointed out, and used his airbending to open the door. 

“You’re the exception to most rules,” Zuko muttered as they entered the mysterious chamber. 

“You’re more pathetic than I thought, to be bested by a twelve year old boy,” Zhao said moistly. 

Lu Ten barely resisted the urge to squirm. He was twenty seven, damn it!

“I will be taking over the hunt for the Avatar,” Zhao continued, “since you’re clearly too young and inexperienced.”

_ Inexperienced? I’ll show you inexperienced, you smarmy motherfucker! I fought in the 600 Day Siege of Ba Sing Se! I lost my spirits-damned right arm fighting in the war! And you’re only twenty years older than me anyway! _

None of this, of course, was said out loud, because that would mean talking, and Lu Ten didn’t like talking. 

Zhao lightly stroked the stub of Lu Ten’s arm. 

Lu Ten froze, his breath hitching. 

Iroh’s brows furrowed. “Commander-”

“I’ll be sure to inform the Fire Lord of the turn in events,” Zhao slimed, quickly drawing back his hand. 

In retrospect, it wasn’t Lu Ten’s brightest idea. But really, he could hardly be expected to just take that lying down! 

Though maybe he shouldn’t have tried to punch Zhao, in Zhao’s tent, surrounded by Zhao’s guards. 

Iroh blissfully asked for more tea -  _ it’s Hot Leaf Juice, Dad, where have your standards gone  _ \- while Lu Ten was restrained. 

“That’s a  _ lot  _ of statues,” Zuko observed. 

“There’s no food in here,” Sokka complained. 

Zuko smacked him. 

“Look, they’re arranged in a pattern,” Katara said. “Air, water, earth, fire! It’s the Avatar Cycle!”

Aang went to the last one, and his eyes almost immediately glazed over. Katara nudged his shoulder to regain his attention.

“This is Avatar Roku,” he said. “He was the Avatar before me.”

“Look at his robes! And his top-knot! He’s a firebender!” Sokka said. “See, this is why I didn’t trust you at first.”

Zuko crossed his arms. “Sokka,  _ I’m  _ a firebender.”

“Yeah, but you’re my brother. You don’t count.”

“Well, all righty then.”

There was a humming noise. They quickly hid behind some of the statues, in case it was a Fire Nation soldier, but it wasn’t.

It was a lemur. 

“Dinner!” Sokka cried.

“No!” Aang retorted, scandalised. “It’s a pet!”

And so a race ensued. 

Zuko and Katara looked at each other and rolled their eyes. 

“My search party is almost ready to go,” Zhao oozed. “You will be released once we’re gone.”

Lu Ten growled. 

Zhao laughed, and even  _ that  _ was oily. “How could  _ you,  _ a banished prince, compete with me? I have hundreds of warships at my disposal! If the Fire Lord truly cared about you, he would let you come home without the Avatar. You wouldn’t need to prove to him that, despite your…  _ disadvantage,  _ you’re still worthy of the throne.”

Lu Ten shook his head, scowling, and turned his back to Zhao. 

“...Zuko? Roku’s eyes are glowing.”

Zuko joined Katara next to the most recent statue. Roku’s eyes were indeed glowing. 

“They’re all glowing,” he whispered.

Katara froze.  _ “Aang!”  _

She raced out of the chamber, Zuko on her heels. 

They found Aang - and Sokka - in one of the courtyards. Of course, they couldn’t really  _ see  _ Aang, since he was in the centre of a windstorm. 

“What happened?” Katara shouted.

“He found out Gyatso was killed by firebenders!” Sokka shouted back. 

Zuko watched as Katara fought her way into the windstorm. Soon she vanished too. 

Once Zhao was gone, escaping was almost insultingly easy. It was almost like his guards were just for show, the only threat being their numbers. 

After incapacitating the guards in the tent, it was child’s play to sneak past the other and back onto their own ship, where they could hunker down somewhere Zhao would never think to look - in the back of the cargo hold, behind their many crates of tea - until the bastard was well and truly out of their way. 

If it weren’t for the fact that Zhao could poke his head in at any minute to look for them, Lu Ten would’ve laughed. 

Zuko and Sokka could hear Katara shouting something about their mother. Probably the fact that she was dead, since that was the most relevant detail about Kya at the moment. Then there was something about family; they caught their names being thrown out, and then the wind died down. Zuko and Sokka approached warily, since Aang’s eyes were still glowing, but they stood at Katara’s side.

“None of us will let anything happen to you,” Sokka promised.

Katara took Aang’s hand, and his eyes finally returned to normal. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Aang said softly.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Katara said, catching him as he collapsed. “It’s okay to hurt sometimes.”

He sighed. “You were right about the Fire Nation attacking. If they could get into one of the temples, then they probably got to all of them.” He looked at them with wide eyes. “I really am the last airbender.”

“I’m naming the lemur Momo!”

“Well,  _ Momo  _ just stole my peach!”

“...That’s  _ why  _ I’m naming him Momo, Sokka.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because:  
> Someone - Aang  
> Someone Else - Lu Ten  
> A Different Someone Else - Iroh  
> Another Different Someone Else - Zhao


	6. The Brightest Fire Burns from the Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sokka is an idiot (this is nothing new), Katara feels neglected, and Zuko meets someone important. Also, Lu Ten nearly flips his shit, but is better at self restraint than Canon Zuko. He's also better at listening to Iroh, whom, speaking of, has a way of saying just the right thing to his conflicted child, in every universe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since we covered "The Boy in the Iceberg," "The Avatar Returns," and "The Southern Air Temple" last chapter... y'all know what's happening in this one. 
> 
> Also, I've just noticed that the last three chapter titles have all had the word "Burn" in them? It's not intentional, I swear, it's just SO EASY to stick that word in. 
> 
> ***IMPORTANT - Lu Ten is a little bit racist at the end, since he was raised on Fire Nation propaganda. He doesn't really mean it, it's just the only thing he knows. It's at the end of the paragraph that starts with "But Iroh was right when he said the kid would've only been ten or eleven during the last raid." You can skip that paragraph if you'd rather - I'll put a non-racist summary of it in the end note.

_ Breathe in. The Avatar has returned. Breathe out.  _

_ Breathe in. He has three travelling companions. Breathe out.  _

_ Breathe in. One of those companions is a waterbender, which means there might be more Southern Waterbenders. Breathe out. _

_ Breathe in. They also have a firebender. Breathe out. _

_ Breathe in. Someone betrayed the Fire Nation in favour of the Southern Water Tribe. Breathe out. _

_ Breathe in. Maybe they were a Southern Raider who decided to stay? Breathe out.  _

_ Breathe in. Zhao is also hunting the Avatar. Breathe out.  _

_ Breathe in. I swear to Agni if that slimy git gets in my way I’m going to rip him to shreds and burn them! _

The meditation candles flared alarmingly.

_ Breathe out.  _

_ Brea-  _

“Good morning, my son!” Iroh said cheerfully. It didn’t seem quite genuine.

Lu Ten resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he had to admit his dad had impeccable timing. His train of thought had been veering into dangerous territory. 

“I have news regarding the Avatar’s whereabouts!” Iroh continued. “...Don’t get angry.”

Usually when news regarding something important started with “Don’t get angry” it was  _ bad  _ news, 100% worth getting angry over. 

“...We have no idea where he is.”

The meditation candles flared higher than meditation candles were supposed to be capable of flaring. 

Iroh calmly produced a fan and… fanned himself. Lu Ten internally facepalmed at the redundant observation, but really, how else would one describe that?

Iroh then produced a map, with erratic lines drawn between towns and ports. “There have been multiple sightings of the Avatar, but he is impossible to track.”

_ Fuck. How am I supposed to catch someone who is so clearly a master of evasive manoeuvring? How is a  _ twelve year old  _ a master of evasive manoeuvring?!  _

“You have no idea where we’re going, do you?” Sokka asked, unknowingly looking at the exact same map as their pursuer. This reasonably answered how a twelve year old could be a master of evasive manoeuvring - he wasn’t. 

Aang merely shrugged. He started spinning a trio of marbles with his airbending. “Hey, Katara! Look what I can do!”

“That’s nice, Aang.” She didn’t look up from sewing a pair of Sokka’s trousers. 

“...You didn’t even look,” Aang complained. 

Katara glanced up. “That’s amazing.” And then she was working again.

“But I’m not even doing it now!”

“It’s because she’s a girl,” Sokka said sagely. “They never look.”

Katara chucked his half-sewn trousers at him. 

“Hey, I can’t wear these! They still have a huge hole in them!”

Zuko sighed. “Ignore them,” he told Aang. “Sokka’s an idiot when it comes to girls, whether they’re family or not. And it’s not that Katara’s not interested in what you were doing, it’s just that she has a pretty single-track mind when she’s focused on something.”

Aang nodded, smiling. “Thanks, Zuko. That makes me feel a bit better.” He directed Appa down, and they landed on a small island. 

“We’ve been taking too many detours,” Sokka said. “We’ll never make it to the North Pole at this rate.”

As if the end of Sokka’s sentence was its cue, a huge fish leapt out of the water. 

“That’s why we’re here!” Aang announced.

He stripped to his underwear in record time, and then suddenly he was  _ on the back of one of the elephant koi oh spirits Zuko’s Big Brother Instincts were in overdrive -  _

Aaaaaand there was a huge menacing shadow beneath the waves, because of course there was. 

Zuko was going to have a heart attack before he turned seventeen if this kept up. 

Fortunately, Aang was as slippery as a tiger seal on ice, and managed to evade the huge menacing shadow - which turned out to be a huge menacing sea monster - and be back on shore and wearing his clothes in a manner of seconds. 

So naturally then they were ambushed, dragged away from the beach, and tied to a pillar. 

And then they were stared at by a group of girls wearing matching dresses and makeup. Said group of girls looked like they were wearing armour. And they appeared to be armed.

Zuko internally cursed.

“Where are the men who ambushed us?” Sokka demanded. 

Zuko internally cursed again, because  _ really, Sokka, how dense could you be? _

One of the girls raised an eyebrow.  _ “We’re  _ the ones who ambushed you.”

Sokka’s eyes widened. 

_ Please, Tui, do not let Sokka make a fool of himself.  _

“There’s no way a bunch of girls took us down!”

_ Damn it.  _

A different girl pulled out a golden fan and pressed it to Sokka’s throat. “The unagi will feast tonight,” she hissed. If Zuko didn’t know better, he’d have sworn her hands were smoking. 

“Wait!” Katara cried, wriggling against the rope. “I’m sorry! We’re all sorry! Please don’t hurt my brother, he can be a real idiot sometimes.”

The girl reluctantly stepped back. In her place, a man stepped forward. He didn’t look like a warrior, but he clearly had some authority. 

“Why have you come here?” he asked, frowning.

“To ride the elephant koi,” Aang replied, as though this were obvious.

The man’s frown deepened, and his gaze seemed to linger on Zuko for an uncomfortably long time. “I hope you are not Fire Nation spies,” he said. His tone was pleasant enough, but it carried a veiled threat. “Kyoshi Island has stayed neutral in the war, and I intend to keep it that way!”

Aang brightened. “This island is named after Kyoshi? Awesome! I know her!”

“That’s impossible,” said the first girl who’d spoken. Zuko suspected she was the leader. 

The second girl - who could also plausibly be the leader, Zuko supposed - crossed her arms. “Yeah, Avatar Kyoshi died a couple hundred years ago.”

“I’m the new Avatar!” Aang announced.

This statement was met with general skepticism and disbelief. 

“I say we throw them all to the unagi,” the second girl said after a moment. 

In response, Aang quickly airbent his way out of the ropes tying them to the pillar. 

This was met with general awe and more disbelief, but for a different reason. 

If he wasn’t still tied to the pillar, Zuko would’ve facepalmed. 

“Can you let my friends go now, please?”

The man nodded respectfully. The first girl gestured to the pillar, and a pair of warriors cut the ropes. 

Aang grinned. “Great! Now we should all introduce ourselves. I’m Aang, this is Katara, that’s Sokka, and that’s Zuko!”

The unagi-advocate warrior froze, turning to look at him. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Your name is Zuko?” she whispered.

Zuko was sure that if she hadn’t been wearing Kyoshi makeup, her face would have paled dramatically. He nodded. 

The warrior glanced briefly at Sokka, Katara, and Aang, before grabbing his hand and dragging him towards one of the houses. “There’s something I need to show you,” she said. Upon entering the house, she retrieved an old, yellowed scroll and passed it to him. “Read this.”

Zuko opened the scroll and scanned it, his eyes growing wide at the words “Most powerful noble families in the Fire Nation,” and “The girl is Azula,” and “My husband burned me.” And then he nearly dropped the scroll when he read the postscript - “Should you ever encounter Crown Prince Iroh, know that I trust him with my children’s lives,” because he was pretty sure one of the frozen soldiers on the Fire Navy vessel had called the old man that shot fire at Appa  _ Iroh. _ He wondered what would happen if Iroh learned his name. 

He shook his head to clear that odd thought, and met the warrior’s eyes. They were amber. “You’re Azula,” he blurted. “Aren’t you? That’s why you have the letter, and why you seemed so shocked when Aang said my name.”

The warrior -  _ Azula  _ \- nodded. “I’ll be fourteen on the summer solstice,” she said. 

“I’ll be sixteen on the winter one,” Zuko replied. His throat felt strangely dry. 

Then Azula made a face. “Does this mean that sexist jerk is my brother too?”

Zuko laughed. “Afraid so.”

“...And Katara is my sister?”

“Yep.”

Azula pouted. “Damn. She’s gorgeous.”

“I guess? I don’t know, she’s my sister.”

“Hmm. Hey, can I ask you something?”

Zuko raised an eyebrow. “You just did,” he pointed out.

“Oh, ha-ha. But really.”

“Yeah.”

Azula nodded, as if affirming something to herself. “Why are you so different from Sokka?”

“What do you mean? Why am I so much better looking? Why am I less stupid? Why am I generally cooler?”

She grinned. “Well, yeah, but I meant why are you less of a sexist jerk?”

Zuko nodded sagely. “Ah. You see, unlike Sokka, I have always had a healthy fear of Katara’s wrath.”

Azula giggled. 

They sat in companionable silence for a moment. 

Then:

“Why  _ are  _ you so much better looking, and less stupid, and generally cooler?”

“One, the scar. Two, because I’m the oldest. Three, because of the scar and I’m the oldest.”

She stared at him, as though trying to figure out if he was being serious or not. Zuko smiled serenely. And tried very hard not to laugh.

He failed. 

“Sir! We’ve received word that the Avatar is on Kyoshi Island!” Lieutenant Jee reported. 

Lu Ten almost spilled his tea.

“...We are setting a course for Kyoshi Island,” Jee added, with the barest hint of amusement. 

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 

“Hey, Aang?” Zuko called, for the fifth time.

Aang, who was being followed by what seemed to be the island’s entire female population save for the warriors, plus a large amount of the male population as well, finally heard him. “Oh, hey, Zuko! What’s up?”

“This is Azula! She’s my sister!”

Azula waved.

Aang grinned. “That’s great! It’s really nice that you’ve made a close friend so quickly.”

Zuko stared at him for a moment. “No, she’s  _ literally  _ my sister. Kyoshi Island adopted her the way the Water Tribe adopted me.”

“Oh! That’s even better! Well, gotta go!”

And off Aang went, chased by his fandom. Zuko and Azula watched them go with identical expressions of exasperation.

With some truly impeccable timing, Katara chose that moment to walk by.

“Katara! Guess what?” Zuko said.

Katara paused, shooting him her Tired Mum Face. “What?”

He gestured at his firebending sister. “This is Azula! She’s our sister!”

This was apparently a bad thing to say. The Tired Mum Face morphed into the Angry Mum Face.

“Oh, so now you’ve gone and replaced me too?!” Katara snapped. “I guess I’m just not good enough anymore, huh?”

Zuko recoiled. “What? No - Katara, I said she’s  _ our  _ sister-”

But Katara wasn’t listening. “What’s so special about her?!”

“...I’m a firebender?” Azula offered, looking very uncomfortable. 

“So she’s like you! Is that really enough to pick someone you just met an hour ago over me, who you’ve  _ lived with  _ for thirteen years?!” 

Zuko flinched. “...I finally found another firebender who isn’t evil,” he said quietly. “The fact that she’s our sister is just… nice. I thought… I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Katara opened her mouth to retort, but then Zuko’s words seemed to hit her, and she slumped. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Aang’s just being annoying right now, and I took my frustration out on you.” She smiled slightly. “Is Azula really our sister?”

“There’s a letter and everything,” Azula told her. 

Katara’s smile widened, and she grabbed Azula’s arm and started dragging her away. “I’ve always wanted a sister, you know. Brothers are great, but when one of them is Zuko and the other one is Sokka, and they’re the only people your age in your entire village…”

“That’s… rough?” Azula said. She shot a panicked glance over her shoulder at Zuko, who just waved.

Unfortunately for him, Katara doubled back quickly and dragged him along too. 

Roughly an hour later, one of the Kyoshi warriors ran up to them and breathlessly announced that Suki - whom Azula said was her best friend/ex-girlfriend, since apparently they’d dated each other about a year ago, and were the co-leaders of the warriors - had just kicked Sokka’s ass. 

“Holy shit,” Zuko said. He turned to Azula eagerly. “Can you teach me how to kick Sokka’s ass?”

Azula just laughed. 

She did, however, take him to the dojo, give him a dress, cover his face with Kyoshi makeup, and start teaching him. 

Much to their delight, Zuko was a pretty fast learner - as long as Azula was patient and encouraging, that is, as they’d quickly discovered that pushing and nagging did not get them very far - so they felt no shame stopping to watch Suki quite literally beat some feminism into Sokka’s head by repeatedly knocking him down and then showing him what he was doing wrong. 

They started placing bets on how long it would take Sokka to learn a move. 

Azula usually won, to Zuko’s irritation.

So he challenged her to a fight, one that Suki and Sokka stopped to watch, and he managed to knock her down. 

And then did a little happy dance. 

So naturally, Azula kicked his feet out from under him and scolded him for letting himself get distracted. She did, however, proudly proclaim that he had learned everything she could teach him, and allowed him to put his own clothes back on and wipe off the Kyoshi makeup.

After another half hour or so, Sokka managed to knock Suki down, which Suki initially tried to pass off as intentional, but Azula shook her head. Suki sighed and conceded that Sokka had, in fact, gotten the best of her. 

Just then, though, the leader-y man from before ran in, looking alarmed. 

“Oyaji?” Suki said, surprised. “What’s wrong?”

“The Fire Nation is here, and they’re attacking!”

Sokka’s gaze met Zuko’s.

Zuko cursed. “They’ve been following us from the South Pole,” he said. “They’re after Aang.”

Oyaji grimaced. “Please, help!”

As one, the Kyoshi warriors - plus Sokka and Zuko - grabbed their weapons and joined the fray. 

The Fire Nation soldiers outnumbered them five to one, but the Kyoshi fighting style focused on dodging and using the opponent’s strength against them, allowing the warriors to dodge at nearly the last second and get in some quick hits while the soldiers were still finishing their attacks. 

For the most part, things were going well, until the man - the leader, who seemed to be obsessed with capturing Aang - accidentally set one of the buildings on fire while attacking one of the warriors named Rin. 

Since Azula was off fighting a different member of the man’s crew, and Katara was… somewhere, it was left to Zuko to put out the flames. It was one of the first things he’d taught himself, after breath control, to minimise accidents. 

The fire was quickly smothered, and the man whirled to look at Zuko. They stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds before Zuko decided to say something. 

“Hi. Hear you’re interested in capturing the Avatar. I hate to break it to you, but my brother and sister and I will be doing everything we can to prevent that from happening. Hope you don’t mind.”

The man continued staring at him, though his expression now said,  _ “What the actual fuck?”  _

Zuko scowled. “There is one thing I’d like to discuss with you, though. You promised Aang you’d leave our village alone if he handed himself over to you. But we helped him escape, so he didn’t hold up his end. Did you leave the village alone, or did you go back and destroy it?”

The man looked scandalised now, like the thought of destroying the village hadn’t even crossed his mind. 

“Good,” Zuko said. “Because then I’d be trying to kill you, which would just be awkward because I’m really not a huge fan of ending someone’s life.” His mind helpfully supplied flashes of Kya’s death, which he angrily shoved aside. “Still gonna kick your ass, though, since we can’t have you following us  _ again.”  _

The man shot a blast of fire at him, which Zuko dodged. He then thrust his own hand forward like he’d seen Aang do while airbending, and shot his own blast of fire. The man dissipated it easily. 

This continued for several long moments, during which Zuko realised that despite being heat resistant, he was most certainly  _ not  _ fire resistant, as he and the man were both smoking, and his fingertips were somewhat scorched. The man’s weren’t, though, so he put that down to his own inexperience. 

Then the man shot a ball of flame that Zuko couldn’t quite dodge. It hit him square in the chest and sent him to the ground. He managed to put out the flames before they burned him too badly, but by then the man was already looming over him, fist burning threateningly. Zuko braced himself - 

“Prince Lu Ten!”

That was… unexpected. Zuko turned his head to see the owner of the voice, who, fortunately, came from the right. It was the old man who may or may not be named Iroh. 

The old man continued speaking, but Zuko found his attention captured by Lu Ten’s face. The name - and the face it was attached to - was almost familiar, like something from a dream he couldn’t quite remember. And, now that he thought about it, Possibly-Iroh’s voice sounded vaguely familiar as well, in the same manner. 

“The boy can’t be older than sixteen, my son! He is younger than you were when you first fought in this war. Are you really going to kill him?” Possibly-Iroh was saying. 

Lu Ten made a conflicted noise, and Possibly-Iroh used the opportunity to drive the point home. 

“He is too young to be a traitor to the Fire Nation. He won’t be the age of enlistment for another year at least, and the last ship to raid the South Pole sailed five years ago. This boy would have only been ten or eleven years old!”

The fire on Lu Ten’s fist flickered out, and he looked down at Zuko, his internal debate written clear across his face. Zuko, rather afraid, looked back. 

Lu Ten stepped away, allowing Zuko to scramble to his feet and  _ run. _

Lu Ten barely registered anything as the great grey eel spat water over the buildings that his crew had set alight in the battle, as his dad guided him back to their ship, as the Avatar’s bison flew away, carrying the mysterious firebender with it. 

His head was stuck in his interaction with that kid. Did he really think Lu Ten would have gone back and destroyed his village? Was that what the Southern Water Tribe had come to think of the Fire Nation? Heartless bringers of death and pain? 

And that  _ kid.  _ He had to be half and half. There was no other explanation as to why a firebender would be living at the South Pole, wearing Water Tribe clothing and wielding Water Tribe weapons. And  _ helping the Avatar.  _ No firebender loyal to their nation would aid their number one target. 

But Iroh was right when he said the kid would’ve only been ten or eleven during the last raid. Had the kid seen someone die? It would explain why he said he didn’t want to kill anyone, which didn’t fit with what Lu Ten had been told about Water Tribe savages. They were raised to kill people. The kid was probably seen as weak for not wanting to. 

And he’d clearly never had proper firebending training, if his awkward, airbending-esque movements were anything to go by. 

But what Lu Ten was really stuck on, out of all of it, was the terror in the kid’s eye when he’d been on the ground and Lu Ten had been about to burn him to the Spirit World and back. 

And Iroh’s  _ damning  _ words. 

_ “I thought you left this side of yourself in Ba Sing Se! After our defeat, you told me you never wanted to be that person again. You told me you never wanted to kill another human being, whether they were the enemy or not! So why are you so ready to kill this  _ child?  _ What is it about him that has brought back the darkness you have kept locked away for six years? Do you really want to be that person again? Do you really want to dirty your hands with the blood of a child?” _

He’d found himself staring at the terrified boy at his feet. He’d assumed the Avatar’s firebender was an adult, a traitor to the nation. And when he’d seen the kid putting out the fire he’d accidentally started on that building, he’d assumed the kid was around twenty, the age he’d been when he was fighting in the 600 Day Siege. 

It wasn’t until he saw the fear on the kid’s face that it struck him that the kid was just that - a  _ kid.  _

So when they got back to the ship, he dragged his dad into his quarters, locked the door, and broke down. 

Because  _ spirits,  _ had he really been about to kill a child?

Iroh held him as he sobbed, rubbing soothing circles on his back and murmuring comforting nothings. 

And all Lu Ten could think about was how he’d overheard an argument, almost thirteen years ago, that resulted in the deaths of his aunt and cousins. 

He sobbed harder when he realised how close he’d come to being a twisted monster like his uncle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "But Iroh was right when he said the kid would've only been ten or eleven during the last raid." - Lu Ten is comparing Zuko's statement about not wanting to kill anyone to the Fire Nation propaganda he'd been raised on regarding the Water Tribes, and it doesn't really add up. He assumes Zuko doesn't want to kill anyone because he'd seen someone die, rather than the fact that most decent human beings don't want to kill anyone, regardless of where they're from. 
> 
> So... that ending was a bit angsty? It wasn't supposed to be. Zuko and Lu Ten just make it REALLY easy. And Ozai makes a great angst prompt. And what's this? Do I sense a hint of foreshadowing?  
> ...Possibly...
> 
> Next time: Zuko attempts, twice, to be the voice of reason in the group. He also fails. Twice.


	7. Plant Your Roots Deep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we learn more about Azula, the Gaang gets into trouble with the authorities, and Zuko makes a sort-of-friend. 
> 
> Contains mild gay panic and supportive LGBTQ+ disasters. Also functional supportive LGBTQ+ people, but there are only two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wanted more Azula, and also some of her backstory, so I shoved some in to this chapter. I'm trying to stay close to her canon character, but it's kind of hard when Ozai hasn't screwed her up and she's been raised with genuine love and affection. I'll try and squeeze in some time with Azula and the Kyoshi Warriors during the rest of the season one arc, as well as the season two arc, because. Y'all love her, and I love her...  
> Also, am I unironically stealing the names of Studio Ghibli characters for the Kyoshi Warriors and other island residents? Yes, yes I am. 
> 
> Anyway, things happen in this chapter! Which should have arguably been two chapters because the Azula section alone is nearly 3,700 words -  
> This ended up going a completely different direction than originally planned, so... enjoy?

One of the earliest memories Azula had was realising she wasn’t like the rest of the kids on Kyoshi Island. They all had earthy-brown eyes. Azula had brownish eyes too, but they were more fiery. So one day, when she was three, she asked Bonzu why her eyes were different. 

He had a weird look on his face when he answered, like he couldn’t decide whether to be happy or sad. “You’re not from this island originally,” he’d said. “We took you in when you were only one year old.”

And that had been enough, for a while, until she turned four and accidentally set Suki’s mother’s Kyoshi uniform on fire. 

Bonzu had been forced to tell her that her mother was from the Fire Nation, and had brought her to Kyoshi Island to escape. 

That had been enough for a while too, until a plague swept across the island when Azula was twelve. It hit anyone regardless of age, though the older the person, the more likely the case would be deadly. Fortunately, once someone had recovered, they were immune, and by then anyone younger than twenty had caught it. Bonzu had just caught it, but he was in his late eighties. Azula wished she didn’t know how that was going to end. 

He sat her down one morning after his health had taken an alarming downturn, and handed her a scroll. 

“I believe this may be a year or two overdue, I’m afraid-” He paused to retch in a bucket, “-but I wanted to protect you from the horrors of your origin. I still think you are too young, but since I am not likely to be around for much longer-” He retched again, “-now may be the last chance I have to give you that letter.”

Rather hesitantly, Azula unrolled the scroll. She read it quickly, then read it again, and again, and again - 

“Is this - is this for real?” she asked. “I have a brother?”

Bonzu nodded. “On the day you were brought to us, we were trading with a ship from the Southern Water Tribe. Neither of us wanted to risk raising two Fire Nation children in places where the Fire Navy has been known to prowl, so we each adopted one of you.” He offered her a weak smile. The effect was ruined when he retched yet again. “I believe your brother was taken in by a pair of charming young men named Hakoda and Bato. If the Water Tribe ever returns, you should ask about them.”

And that had been that. Bonzu passed away a few days later, and the letter quickly became one of Azula’s most prized possessions, along with her fans. Suki’s mother had also passed away due to the sickness, but fortunately Suki’s older sister, San, had not, and had taken over their warrior training. 

About a week after that, a fleet of ships from the Southern Water Tribe arrived. They too caught the sickness, but it didn’t seem to affect them as badly, or for as long. Azula wondered if they had some sort of natural immunity. 

After they had been there for a couple of days, she heard one of the men address another as  _ Bato.  _ So, mustering up her courage, she went up to him.

“Excuse me,” she said, drawing his attention. “Are you Bato?”

He nodded, smiling. “And who might you be?”

“My name is Azula.”

Bato’s eyes widened. “Right, then. Uh, here, follow me for a minute.” He led her to another man. “Hakoda? This is Azula.”

Hakoda did a better job of hiding his surprise at the name. “Hi,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Azula presented the letter. 

“Ah, I see. You want to hear about your brother?”

She nodded. 

Hakoda smiled. “I could talk about my kids all day. I have two more, a son and a daughter. Katara is your age, and she’s a waterbender, which is inadvertently how we found out Zuko was a firebender. You see, Sokka, the middle child, has a tendency to incite Katara’s temper. So one day, they were arguing, and Katara’s waterbending made the snow bank Sokka was standing on explode. Zuko, who had been attempting to calm them down, was so surprised that he sneezed…”

Azula found herself leaning forward in anticipation. Hakoda was a  _ really  _ good storyteller. 

“...And fire came out of his nose!”

She giggled. 

Hakoda chuckled, too. “Zuko’s very protective, like a wolf guarding its pack, or a dragon guarding its hoard. He tries to help out wherever he can, even if he doesn’t need to, and he’ll go out of his way to help someone simply because they need it. He’s very kind.”

Azula smiled. It made her happy that Zuko was nice. She was nice, too, but not in the same way. Bonzu had said she was fiercely loyal to the people she cared about, and  _ only  _ the people she cared about. She was glad that she could add Zuko - and Hakoda and Katara and Sokka - to that list. 

Hakoda ended up telling her all sorts of stories about the South Pole while his men recovered from the sickness, including one where Zuko, during one of the months with no sun, had been trying to help the men fish and had fallen asleep while holding a net. 

She couldn’t imagine living somewhere where the sun set for weeks at a time. She didn’t like nighttime as it was, only lasting fifteen hours at most, because her connection to the sun felt weaker. Zuko had to be  _ really  _ strong. 

When she voiced this to Hakoda, the man smiled sadly and said, “Yeah. He is.”

His tone was almost mournful. 

The Water Tribe couldn’t stay on Kyoshi Island forever, though. They’d left the South Pole for a reason. Eventually they moved on, off to fight the Fire Nation. 

Azula often wondered what it would be like to fight people like herself, who could bend fire. She hoped, for the sake of her new family that she’d only kind of met, that the firebenders weren’t as skilled as she was. 

But the departure of the Water Tribe left confusing thoughts in Azula’s mind. Hakoda and Bato had seemed… in love? The only thing she could think to compare it to was San’s relationship with Kiki, another one of the older warriors. They always seemed happier when they were together, and they always held each other’s hands and pressed kisses to each other’s lips at every opportunity. 

Some of the adults on the island were like that, too, but the part that Azula found confusing was that the adults on the island that were like that were all pairs of a girl and a boy. But San and Kiki were both girls, and Hakoda and Bato were both boys. She just didn’t get it. 

So, one day, she asked San about it. 

San patiently explained that some people are attracted to girls, and some are attracted to guys, regardless of their own gender. She also explained that some people were attracted to both genders, and some people weren’t attracted to anyone. 

Then Kiki had added that some people didn’t like it when others were in same-sex relationship, and that those people were often rude to people who were in that kind of relationship. She had looked sad. 

Which was how San ended up explaining that homophobia - because of course there was a name for it - was as much of a problem as the sickness had been. And it often caused as much pain as the sickness had. 

Azula thought for a moment. “I… I kind of think Suki is really pretty,” she said quietly. 

San hugged her tightly. “That’s  _ wonderful,  _ Lula. But I want you to promise me something.”

“Okay.”

“Promise me you will  _ never  _ be ashamed of who you are or who you love. You will plant your feet and tell the world that it can’t stop you from finding happiness, and you’ll help anyone who’s confused about themselves or afraid of the world’s reaction to them. Can you promise me that?”

Azula snuggled more securely into San’s arms. “Yeah,” she whispered into the fabric of the Kyoshi uniform. “I promise.”

About two weeks later, Suki thought she might also find girls really pretty, which led to a very awkward conversation that ended with Suki and Azula kissing. 

The kiss was awkward, too, because neither of them had done it before and they were figuring it out as they went. 

They started doing “couple” things, like holding hands and affectionate kisses and sunset walks on the beach.

It didn’t last long. 

After “dating” for roughly five days, they kissed again, more passionately, and then they both pulled away with matching grimaces on their faces. 

“I think we’re too much like sisters,” Suki said. 

“Yeah, kissing you like that feels kinda weird,” Azula agreed. 

So they went back to being best friends. 

San and Kiki told them that trial and error was really the best way to figure that kind of thing out, and assured them that there would be other opportunities in the future.

And for a while, everyone was happy. 

Until three months after Azula’s thirteenth birthday, when a pirate ship showed up. 

All the girls around the same age as Suki and Azula had finished their warrior training by then, and a few of them were excited for their first fight. 

San and Kiki led the charge against the idiotic pirates that thought it would be a good idea to raid Kyoshi Island. 

The battle wasn’t as easy as many of them had been expecting. Azula’s first instinct once things started going downhill was to use her firebending, which wasn’t overly difficult since the Kyoshi fighting style was very similar to earthbending, and earthbending was very similar to proper firebending, but she knew better than to reveal to a  _ pirate  _ that there was a firebender on a neutral Earth Kingdom island. 

Thinking back on it, she should have known as soon as she saw San that things were going to end badly. 

“Lula! I need you and Suki to take over leading the girls, okay? Suki’s the oldest and the two of you fight like you’re two halves of the same person, so you two are the best for the job. Can you do that for me?” 

“Yes, but-”

San pressed a quick kiss to Azula’s forehead. “No time - tell Suki I love her!”

So Azula found Suki, passed on the message, and started giving directions to the others when they seemed unsure of what to do once they’d taken down an opponent. 

And then, all of a sudden, the pirates retreated. 

And Kiki and San had vanished. 

Suki and Azula stepped up to the leadership of the warriors as best they could, but they’d had little mentorship for it and practically no experience. It took more than a few training exercises for everyone to get used to the new arrangement. 

So, when they discovered three people who looked to be wearing Water Tribe clothing and a fourth person wearing odd yellow and orange robes, Azula was quite pleased to announce that the ambush was executed perfectly. 

But nothing was ever that simple, apparently, since the boy in the odd robes was the Avatar, the girl was Katara and one of the Water Tribe boys was Sokka -  _ just like Hakoda’s kids, so that meant the last one, who didn’t look like them but dressed like them and had four claw-like scars on the left side of his face had to be _ -

“...And that’s Zuko!” The Avatar announced, like he  _ hadn’t  _ just dumped a metaphorical bucket of ice water over Azula’s head. 

“Your name is Zuko?” she heard herself whisper. 

Zuko nodded, and then Azula was dragging him back to her house, to the desk with the drawer with the letter - 

She couldn’t tear her eyes off his face as he read the words left by her mother -  _ their  _ mother - and then looked up to meet her gaze with his own eyes, as golden as the setting sun. 

“You’re Azula, aren’t you,” he said, and Azula nearly started crying. 

After kind-of-not-really getting to know each other, Azula told him about how Hakoda had stopped at the island a year and a half ago and regaled her with stories. 

Zuko sounded strangely choked when he asked why she wanted to hear stories about  _ him.  _

She just smiled and said, “You’re my brother, dummy! Of course I wanted to hear stories about you!”

He returned her smile, looking endearingly nervous, and then took her to properly meet Aang and Katara and Sokka.

She was pleased to note, after being introduced to Aang and watching him get chased by his fandom, that Zuko’s look of exasperation was identical to her own. It was nice. 

Then Katara showed up, and  _ spirits,  _ she was gorgeous. Azula almost had what Kiki called “Gay Panic” before firmly reminding herself that Katara was her  _ sister,  _ and falling in love with her would be like falling in love with Suki - weird, uncomfortable, and kind of gross to think about. This quickly dispelled the Gay Panic before it started. 

So, naturally, Katara had to get all snippy. Which was  _ really  _ hot. Azula began to chant the word  _ SISTER  _ in her head. And also cursed the fact that she couldn’t have been raised with Katara, and therefore not need to remind herself that Katara was her brother’s sister. 

“What’s so special about her?!” Katara demanded. 

“...I’m a firebender?” Azula offered uncomfortably. 

This led to yet more ranting on Katara’s part, until Zuko cut in with the saddest sounding “I thought you’d be happy for me” Azula had ever heard, and she resisted the urge to swaddle him in blankets and protect him from the world, because she had a feeling Katara wouldn’t appreciate that. 

Katara opened her mouth to retort, but then Zuko’s words seemed to hit her, and she slumped. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Aang’s just being annoying right now, and I took my frustration out on you.” She smiled slightly. “Is Azula really our sister?”

“There’s a letter and everything,” Azula told her. 

Katara’s smile widened, and she grabbed Azula’s arm and started dragging her away. “I’ve always wanted a sister, you know. Brothers are great, but when one of them is Zuko and the other one is Sokka, and they’re the only people your age in your entire village…”

“That’s… rough?” Azula said. She shot a panicked glance over her shoulder at Zuko, who just waved.

Unfortunately for him, Katara doubled back quickly and dragged him along too.

They ended up talking about girl stuff - makeup and undergarments and their monthly ritual involving Hachiman’s waterfall - which led to Zuko looking like he wanted to die. Azula almost felt bad. 

Almost. 

He was lucky that Kumiko showed up and informed them that Suki had just kicked Sokka’s ass, because that gave him the opportunity to ask if she could teach him. 

Azula agreed with no hesitation and more than a little laughter. They said goodbye to Katara, who was going to find Aang and see if he was going to be less annoying, and off they went to the dojo. 

Zuko was a good student. As long as Azula was patient and encouraging, he learned faster than anyone she’d ever seen. 

They both thoroughly enjoyed watching Suki teaching Sokka - Azula because Suki was a badass and she loved her, Zuko because there’s nothing better than watching your brother get his ass handed to him over and over again, and because Suki was humiliating the misogyny out of him, which meant less disputes to resolve between Sokka and Katara. 

Azula, remembering some of the arguments she’d witnessed between San and Suki, didn’t have the heart to tell him that the only thing that would change was the  _ reason  _ for the disputes, not the number. 

And as disappointed as she was when Zuko managed to beat her, she was also very, very proud. Because  _ she’d  _ taught him how to do that. And his little happy dance was adorable. 

_ Of course  _ the Fire Nation had to show up and ruin it. 

Suki and Sokka peeled off from the rest of the group, as did Zuko and Rin. Azula was left with Kumiko, Yuna, Toki, Naoko, Hana, Kinu, and Rumi, and together they managed to mostly fend off the soldiers. But many of the soldiers were firebenders, and soon the village was burning. 

Azula ended up putting Toki in charge of the rest of the group so she could subtly put out the flames. After a minute or two, she was joined by a breathless and half-terrified Zuko. He doused the flames much more quickly, and with much less subtlety. 

“He was going to kill me,” Zuko gasped, and Azula couldn’t tell if he was just out of breath from running and fighting or if he was about to have a panic attack.

“Who was?” she asked. 

He put out another fire. “Lu Ten, he’s the guy that’s chasing us, he had me on the ground and his hand was burning and he was going to fucking kill me!”

“Why? And why didn’t he?”

“I don’t know! I think it’s because I’m a firebender? I think he thought I committed treason to the Fire Nation or something? But he stopped because there was an old man who I guess is his dad, and the old man pointed out that I’m only sixteen and that I’m too young to have committed treason, and then Lu Ten freaked the fuck out like all of a sudden killing me would be a sin or some shit like that-”

Azula put her hands on Zuko’s shoulders, effectively cutting him off. “Breathe, Dummy.”

He took a deep breath.

“Good. You’re calm. Now  _ stay  _ calm, got it?”

Zuko nodded. 

Just then, Katara and Aang appeared, followed by Appa. 

“Zuko, come on, we’re leaving,” Katara said. “We figured that since that ship is hunting Aang, if we leave, they’ll follow us and leave the island alone.”

Zuko nodded again, and turned back to Azula. “You could come with us,” he whispered, but the look on his face said he already knew what her answer would be.

“My place is with Suki and the girls,” she replied. “But I’ll see you again, Dummy. Staying neutral in the war seems wrong now, and I have a feeling Suki will agree with me. You’re going north, right? We’ll find each other.”

And with that, Azula’s big brother hugged her for the first time. She hugged him back just as tightly. 

“We’ll find each other,” he repeated, and Azula smirked into his shoulder.

“You’d  _ better  _ find me. Otherwise I’ll have to hunt you down and bring you home the hard way.”

Zuko huffed a surprised laugh, squeezed her one more time, and pulled away. “Bye, Lula.”

She couldn’t help but keep smirking at him. “Bye, Dummy.”

_ “Why  _ must you call me that?”

“Because I’m your little sister, it’s my job.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. 

Katara rolled her eyes. “Okay, you’re both children. Come on, Zuko, we need to go.”

“What about Sokka?”

“He’s having fun,” Azula said, pointing. 

The others looked over just in time to see Suki kiss Sokka’s cheek, which immediately flushed dark red. 

Zuko sniggered. “Of  _ course  _ he’d fancy the girl who kicked his ass.”

Azula nodded sagely. “It goes both ways. Suki has a thing for idiots.”

Zuko just laughed harder. 

After Appa had taken off again, Azula once again directed her efforts into subtly putting out the fires engulfing the village. 

So Aang decided to make her job easier by enlisting the help of the spirits-damned  _ unagi  _ to spit a shit ton of water at it. 

Because, y’know, that was normal. 

Once things had calmed down and the Fire Nation soldiers were gone, the warriors and the council gathered in what was left of the town hall. 

“It’s time for Kyoshi Island to join the fight against the Fire Nation,” Suki declared before anyone else could say anything. 

This was met with nearly unanimous uproar from everyone except the warriors. 

“Kyoshi Island has remained neutral for one hundred years!” Oyaji said. “To pick a side now would be in violation of the neutrality agreement reached back then!”

Azula crossed her arms. “In case you hadn’t noticed, the Fire Nation already violated it. They attacked us with no provocation, simply because the Avatar was here.”

“And what would we have done if they had approached peacefully?” Muska asked. “If we had handed over the Avatar, it would have been an act in their favour, but if we hadn’t, it would have been an act against them!”

“We would have said we will neither give them nor deny them the Avatar, as they have not put a bounty on his head,” Kamaji replied. 

“Suki and Azula are right,” Toki said. “The last Earth Kingdom ship that resupplied here said the war wasn’t going well. Do you think the Fire Lord is going to care whether we opposed him or not? No, because we’re Earth Kingdom. This war is going to end, and soon. Which side wins could be entirely dependent on the Avatar, but it could also depend on whether Kyoshi Island gets its shit together and sends their team of elite warriors to aid our kingdom’s armies!”

_ Holy FUCK that was hot- _

_ -get your OWN shit together Azula, now is not the time to be turned on by Toki putting the council in its place but hoT DAMN.  _

Oyaji sighed. “I suppose at this point it is down to a vote. All in favour of remaining neutral?”

A sizable number of people raised their hands.

“All in favour of joining the war effort?”

A slightly more sizable number of people raised their hands, including all of the warriors. 

Oyaji sighed again. “So be it. Kyoshi Island hereby officially allies itself with the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe against the Fire Nation.”

Azula could have kissed Toki right there. 

So she did. 

“Holy shit,” Zuko said.

“You can say that again,” Sokka agreed.

“Holy  _ shit.”  _

Aang looked mildly scandalised at Zuko’s language. 

Katara patted him on the shoulder. “We don’t have cities like this at the South Pole. Our village was pretty standard - there’s lots of them dotted around, but they’re all roughly the same size. If they get too small, they join another small village so both villages can sustain life.”

Aang nodded. “Oh, okay. So let’s go!”

“Hold up,” Zuko said, grabbing the back of Aang’s tunic. “Kyoshi Island was attacked because Lu Ten heard you were there. Omashu’s an even bigger community than the island, word of the Avatar being here would spread quickly. You should disguise yourself or something.”

“Great idea!” Aang ran his hands through Appa’s fur and fashioned a wig and moustache out of the shedding. He hunched himself over, using his staff as a walking stick, and spoke with a crotchety old man voice. “How’s this?”

“You look like our grandfather,” Sokka decided.

Zuko frowned. “We’ve never even met him, though?”

“Ugh, fine. You look like you  _ could be  _ our grandfather. There, happy, Zuko?”

“Mm-hm.”

Aang chose that moment to stick his hand under the wig and scratch his head. “The fur is itchy.”

Katara looked at him in mock sympathy. “Oh, no, is our beloved one hundred and twelve year old grandfather uncomfortable?”

He shot her a half-hearted glare, and they headed to the city’s entrance. “Omashu is one of the friendliest places in the world - they let pretty much everyone in!”

“MY CABBAGES!”

“...Except him, I guess.”

Zuko snorted. 

This drew the attention of the guards, who earthbent a small boulder over Aang’s head. “State your business!”

Aang, hilariously, leaned fully into his role. “My business is my own!” he grouched. “Why, back in my day, such disrespect would never have been tolerated! I’ll bend you over my knee and teach you some respect, young man, do you hear me?!”

The man returned the boulder to the bridge. “Whoa, calm down, sir. What’s your name?”

“Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis the third!”

_Bonzu_ _Pippinpadda who what now?_

“These-” Aang gestured to Zuko, Sokka, and Katara, “-are my grandchildren.”

Katara, apparently, had no issues with Aang’s fake name, and stepped forward. “Hi. June Pippinpaddleopsicopolis.”

Zuko really had no idea how she did that. 

There was a brief mishap where the guard scolded Sokka for not carrying his grandfather’s bags - which Aang then gleefully tossed back to him - before the gate was earthbent open and they were met with the city proper. 

So, naturally, they somehow managed to get separated immediately. 

With no idea where Aang, Sokka, and Katara had gone, Zuko ended up wandering the streets rather aimlessly. 

Until he was crashed into by an old man. 

“Oh, sorry!” he cried, helping the man get back to his feet. “I should’ve been looking where I was going.”

The man - whose right eye was alarmingly wide and his left eye was narrowed and twitchy - waved him off. “Nonsense. If you’d been looking where you were going, you wouldn’t have crashed into me!”

“Er… yeah, that’s what I meant.”

The man looked at him oddly. “Then why did you crash into me?”

Zuko returned his odd look. “Because I wasn’t looking where I was going!”

“Exactly!”

_...What.  _

Somehow, this interaction led to Zuko joining the old man for tea in a room that looked suspiciously like it belonged in the palace. He also ended up learning how to play Pai Sho. 

The man - whose name was Bumi - actually turned out to be quite pleasant company, and Zuko suspected he was a bit lonely, and had crashed into him intentionally. 

He found he didn’t mind. 

“So, you’re the firebender that’s been travellin’ with the Avatar?” Bumi said suddenly, as he kicked Zuko’s ass at Pai Sho for the seventh consecutive time.

“What makes you think that?” Zuko replied. Bumi had, unknowingly or otherwise, spent the last hour teaching Zuko how to maintain a neutral expression. 

“Well, you look Fire Nationy, but you’re wearing Water Tribe clothing. So unless you’re secretly an earthbender, then I’m right.”

Zuko had no fucking clue how Bumi’s mind worked. 

Bumi grinned. “That, and the Avatar and two Water Tribe children were just arrested and are currently on their way here.”

“They  _ what?!”  _

Bumi cackled. “Worry not, my fiery friend! Do you mind following my plan?”

Through a thought process that Zuko himself didn’t understand, despite it being his own thought process, he ended up agreeing. 

Then, the guards - and Aang, Sokka, and Katara - marched in. 

“We have found these three guilty of vandalism, travelling under false pretenses, and malicious destruction of cabbages!” the head guard announced. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “Tui and La, I can’t take my eyes off you for five seconds, can I?”

Aang grinned sheepishly. “Hi, Zuko.” 

Katara and Sokka guiltily echoed his greeting. 

What followed was very confusing; they had a feast with Bumi (who was apparently the king, not just a random slightly crazy old man), Aang said they came from Kangaroo Island, Bumi made a terrible, Sokka-worthy pun, which only Sokka laughed at; and then Aang was revealed to be the Avatar and he, Sokka, and Katara were being escorted to a recently refurbished “prison cell.” It was more of a guest room. 

“What are you going to do with me?” Zuko asked warily, crossing his arms. The order to be locked in the recently refurbished guest room apparently hadn’t applied to him. 

Bumi looked at him as though he’d forgotten he was there. “Oh, you’re special. Follow me.”

And so he did, because what was he going to do, say no? 

This proved to be a mistake. 

Bumi directed him to stand in a blue ring on the floor of something that looked like a combat arena, and told him to stay put until told otherwise. 

Like an idiot, Zuko listened. 

And the blue ring suddenly shot up to his shoulders. 

“You can move now,” Bumi said pleasantly, and fucked off to do something else. 

Zuko tried very hard to ignore the fact that the blue ring - more of a blue cage, now - was  _ very  _ similar to that cave he’d gotten trapped in when he was five. 

Some time - too much time later, he’d already panicked twice because the  _ walls were closing in  _ \- later, he heard voices. 

_ Thank La.  _

He slammed his fists against the side of his odd, blue rocky prison. “Let me out!”

_ “Zuko?!”  _

“Katara, Sokka, Tui and La - get me out of here!”

The walls were closing in again - it was getting harder and harder to breathe - how long had he been in there? Was he running out of air? Oh,  _ shit,  _ he was running out of air and the walls were closing in and he was going to be crushed and Sokka and Katara would be devastated-

Something exploded. 

It took Zuko a moment to register that it was his odd blue rocky prison. 

It took him another moment to realise his forearms were scorched. 

“Zuko!”

He looked up - when had he fallen to his knees? - at Katara, who looked mildly horrified. 

“The walls were closing in on me,” he whispered. 

He faintly heard Bumi muttering, “That wasn’t supposed to happen…”

And then everything went dark. 

When he woke up, he was in Appa’s saddle, and they were flying away from Omashu. 

Aang cheerfully filled him in on what happened - something about challenges and Bumi actually being Aang’s best friend from a hundred years ago and how the weird blue rock was actually jennamite, which was rock candy. 

Sokka then less-cheerfully told him that his claustrophobia kicked in and his firebending reacted to his panic. 

Katara then even-less-cheerfully said that he’d burned himself by firebending against rock, and that his arms would be tender for a while. 

Zuko accepted this knowledge, nodded, and went back to sleep.

Everything was so much easier to handle when he wasn’t actually handling it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to google, Hachiman is a Shinto god of war and was the patron deity of many warriors in Japan. Hence why I used his name in the context that I did. 
> 
> And here's some art of how I've envisioned Zuko in this - fair warning, it's kinda shitty because it's the first digital art I've ever done, so... https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ST7InUCVeg6bIovENmkX7tYgvA2qkss0/view?usp=sharing 
> 
> Also, does anyone know someone who gives really good life advice? Because I could use some.


	8. Ashmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Zuko is exposed to racism, and his mental health reflects it. Meanwhile, Katara, Aang, and Sokka are trying their best, and Lu Ten is very stressed.   
> In other news, Azula and Toki are lesbians in love and we're happy for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the end of this chapter, Zuko is officially sixteen years old! And he's a dumbass with no sense of self preservation and a distinct lack of self esteem! But what else is new!
> 
> Don't get me wrong, I love Zhao as a character, he's a great antagonist, but as a person he's such a creep and I hate him? So that's reflected in the way I write him. 
> 
> Also, I'm sorry. I just seem to be physically incapable of not writing Zuko angst. He's not really having a fun time right now. 
> 
> Warnings for earthbenders being racist towards Zuko, Zuko internalising said racism towards himself, and brief, non-graphic mention of vomit. Also Zhao being racist towards the Water Tribe.

“So… you’re claustrophobic?” Aang asked, sidling up next to Zuko like he was being sneaky. Which he wasn’t. 

Zuko shrugged. “I guess. I got stuck in a cave during a blizzard when I was five. It was a bit traumatising. I only survived because of my firebending.” He exhaled a lick of flame for emphasis. 

“I’ve got dinner!” Sokka announced suddenly. 

They turned to look at him. He was holding a bag, which turned out to be filled with nuts.

“That’s not dinner, Sokka,” Zuko said, unimpressed. “That’s barely even a snack for  _ Momo.”  _

Momo perked up at the sound of his name, glanced between them quickly, and then placed himself on Zuko’s shoulder. Zuko patted him absently. 

A loud  _ crashing  _ noise caught their attention. 

Through silent, mutual agreement, they all followed the sound to a young man, who was practicing earthbending. 

“Hello?” Katara said. 

The young man whirled around, and  _ oh fuck.  _

_ He was gorgeous.  _

Then he ran off, looking terrified, and Zuko couldn’t help but wish Katara hadn’t opened her mouth in the first place. 

So, naturally, they followed him. 

The town was swarming with Fire Nation soldiers. Of course it was. No wonder the guy had looked so afraid - earthbenders were probably treated the same way as the waterbenders that had been taken from the South Pole. 

Before Zuko could say this, of course, Katara, Sokka, and Aang had already found the guy and followed him into a shop. 

“Sorry we scared you,” Katara said. “But if you don’t mind me asking, why did you run?”

Zuko felt it was time to step in, as the guy - and an older woman who seemed to be his mother - looked as though they very much didn’t want to answer.

“Look outside, Katara,” he said. “This place is under Fire Nation control. You  _ know  _ what that means.”

She frowned, confused. 

“The  _ raids.”  _

The blood drained from Katara’s face, and she turned back to the guy and his mother. “I am  _ so  _ sorry,” she said quietly. “Your secret is safe with us.”

The guy’s mother eyed them sagely. “You look as though you have felt the same pain as us.”

“We’re from the South Pole,” Katara explained. “The Fire Nation took all of our waterbenders except for myself.”

Sokka crossed his arms. “And they killed our mother.”

This conversation somehow led to them joining the guy - whose name was Haru - and his mother - whose name was Aiko - for dinner. 

Aiko told them about how Haru’s father had been arrested for earthbending. How their village had been thriving until the Fire Nation showed up. How they all lived in fear now. 

In return, Katara told Aiko and Haru about life at the South Pole, where their tribe had already been so damaged by the Fire Nation that herself, Sokka, and Zuko were the only kids their age, and how all the men had left to fight in the war. 

Zuko kept getting distracted by Haru’s cheekbones. He tried to focus on the conversation. He really did. It was just very difficult, because  _ Tui and La the Fire Nation should arrest Haru for having a face that pretty, earthbender or not.  _

Zuko did not mean that literally. Tui and La interpreted it literally. 

Katara went and got Haru arrested (albeit accidentally), because of course she did. 

So, y’know, she decided to get herself arrested, too, even though she wasn’t an earthbender. 

And Zuko, like an idiot, couldn’t let his baby sister get arrested on her own, so shortly after she was taken away, he caused his own scene by attacking some of the Fire Nation soldiers. Without his firebending, because he wouldn’t be surprised if they assumed he was committing treason, and he was pretty sure the punishment for that was death. 

He’d rather not die while his sister was in danger, thanks. 

He had managed to convince the soldiers he was an earthbender, even though he was not the best liar, and got himself shipped off to the same off-shore prison as Katara and Haru. 

Sokka was going to kill him. And Zuko was going to kill Katara. And then Katara was probably going to kill them both, because that’s just how she was. 

It wasn’t hard to find her, once he was at the prison rig. 

She was sitting with Haru and another man, probably the previously-mentioned Haru’s father. 

“I hope you’ve got a good fucking plan,” Zuko said, sitting down next to her. 

Haru’s father sighed. “There is no plan. And there is no hope, despite Katara’s best efforts.”

Zuko stared at him for a moment, before pinching the bridge of his nose. “Oh, for the love of-!  _ Spirits,  _ Katara-” He poked her shoulder repeatedly, “-how am I supposed to protect you if you keep pulling shit like this! First you got yourself arrested in Omashu, now here? What’s next, Ba Sing Se? The Fire Nation itself?”

Katara had the decency to look sheepish. “It… was a better idea in my head?”

“You’re going to give me a heart attack before my sixteenth birthday, you know that, right?”

“Your birthday’s only a week or so away!”

_ “Exactly.”  _

Katara looked a bit put out by that. 

Haru’s father, at least, seemed slightly cheered. “I take it you’re one of the brothers Katara mentioned?”

Zuko waved. “Hello. Zuko here.”

“I’m Tyro. You like Pai Sho?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

Apparently there was a communal Pai Sho board on the prison rig. Because, y’know, that made sense. 

That night, Zuko and Katara met up with Aang and Sokka and discussed a new plan, since Katara’s first one hadn’t worked. Soon enough, they had an idea that was crazy enough that it just might work. 

As the sun rose, the three siblings moved into position next to one of the vents, while Aang prepared to move a shit ton of coal. 

The earthbenders looked at the three of them with a mixture of confusion and worry, while the soldiers looked at them with contempt.

The warden in particular was not very happy with this new development. “Idiot children!” he snapped. “Surrender now!”

Katara smirked and crossed her arms. 

“Surrender now or die!”

Aaaaand then a shit ton of coal shot out of the vent and onto the deck next to the earthbenders. 

“Earthbenders!” Katara cried. “Now’s your chance to stand up and fight for your freedom!”

No one moved. 

The warden laughed. “Foolish girl, their spirits were broken long before you got here.”

“Yeah, well, mine isn’t,” Zuko said. 

He was met with a patronising look. “It will be before long.”

Zuko lit his fist on fire and punched the warden in the face. 

Whispers of  _ ashmaker  _ flitted around the rig. Zuko suddenly felt very self conscious. 

And then a piece of coal hit the warden’s forehead. Both the warden (who was now nursing a bloody nose) and Zuko whirled to see its origin. 

It was Haru. 

Zuko immediately turned away again, because Haru’s  _ spirits-damned cheekbones were too gorgeous.  _ Also his eyes. His eyes were nice too.

The warden ordered the guards to attack, and then the entire rig was in motion. Firebenders and earthbenders alike were throwing coal - the earthbenders bending the coal itself, the firebenders setting it alight and bending the heat attached to it. 

Zuko floated around for the most part, attacking Fire Nation soldiers where he felt he was needed, then moving on. 

“Never thought I’d see the day where an ashmaker would fight against his own kind,” one of the earthbenders remarked as Zuko hit a soldier over the head. 

_ Oh. So  _ that’s  _ what ashmaker meant.  _

It stung, if Zuko was being honest. But he wasn’t. “I was raised in the Southern Water Tribe,” he snapped. 

“Huh. Guess that makes you the least ashmaker-y ashmaker I’ve ever met.”

Zuko resisted the urge to set this man on fire, because that would just prove his point. 

Fortunately, between a shitload of earthbenders, the literal Avatar, a waterbender, Zuko, and Sokka, the battle didn’t last much longer and they were able to escape on a bunch of the prison rig’s boats. 

Tyro and Haru approached them, smiling. 

“We’d like to thank you for restoring our hope,” Haru said, mostly to Katara.

“Even if you  _ are  _ an ashmaker,” Tyro added, entirely to Zuko. 

He curled in on himself. “Yeah. Ashmaker.” 

That was when something caught his eye. Or rather, the  _ absence  _ of something caught his eye. 

“Katara - Mum’s necklace-”

She reached up to touch her throat, where the necklace no longer rested. Her eyes widened in horror. “It… it must’ve fallen off during the fight…”

On the deck of the prison rig, Katara’s necklace was scooped up. Lu Ten eyed it thoughtfully, then pocketed it and turned his eyes to the horizon. 

The Avatar - and the mysterious Water Tribe firebender - were still out there. 

It was only a matter of time before he caught them and brought them before his grandfather. 

There was a Fire Nation helmet in the vast expanse of the burned forest. Zuko wanted to be sick. 

_ Ashmaker,  _ a voice that sounded frighteningly like Kya’s whispered in his mind.  _ Your kind did this. They’re monsters. Just like you.  _

His breath hitched, and then he was on his knees in the ash, losing the contents of his stomach. 

Aang watched him with a terribly sad look in his big, round eyes. “This is my fault,” he said. “It’s the Avatar’s duty to keep balance in the world. That includes protecting nature.”

“Well,” Katara said, “I have good news.”

She promptly chucked something small and hard at Aang’s head. 

He rubbed the spot it hit irritatedly. “How was that  _ good news?”  _

Sokka grinned. “I don’t know, I thought it was pretty good.”

“It’s an acorn!” Katara announced. “This place is full of them! It means the forest will grow back!”

Zuko took a deep breath. The damage wasn’t permanent. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if it was. 

Just then, a man ran out of what was left of the living forest. “Are you the Avatar?” he asked, looking at Aang desperately. Aang nodded. 

“Please help us!”

Aang, being the nice person he was, couldn’t say no, which led to the man taking them to his village.

The village looked like shit. The man hadn’t been lying when he said they needed the Avatar’s help, though with what exactly, Zuko didn’t know. 

That is until one of the villagers mentioned an angry spirit, Hei Bai. 

Aang agreed to help, though he seemed noticeably unsure of what to do. 

Zuko knew the feeling. 

His dad was in a self-heated hot tub. Why the  _ fuck  _ was his dad in a self-heated hot tub?

“Hello, my son!” Iroh greeted cheerfully.

Lu Ten stared at him incredulously. Didn’t he know that they’d lose the Avatar’s trail if they didn’t hurry up? Why was he in a spirits-damned  _ hot tub?  _

Iroh merely smiled blissfully. “You should try it! It would do wonders for your stress.”

Ah, yes, stress. Lu Ten was pretty sure he’d have no personality without his stress. 

“Oh, all right. Just thirty minutes?” Iroh said. 

Lu Ten looked at him for another moment, then shrugged. May as well. 

They must’ve fallen asleep in their self-made hot tub. The water had gone cold, and the stump of Lu Ten’s arm was aching. 

_ Of course  _ there had to be earthbenders. 

And  _ of course  _ the earthbenders had to recognise them.

Lu Ten was half-tempted to crawl into the spirit world just to punch Agni in the face. 

The sun was setting, and Aang was “preparing” to face the vengeful spirit. He was actually just pacing back and forth at the entrance of the village, looking flustered. 

After a few moments, he managed to stand still and wait for the spirit to appear. 

Zuko watched with more than a little apprehension as nothing happened. Aang started to walk away. 

Then suddenly the spirit was there, and  _ Tui and La it was massive.  _

Aang, rather predictably, dodged as the spirit attacked buildings with some sort of mystical energy. 

Sokka disagreed with this strategy. “C’mon, Aang, fight it!” He climbed out the window of the house they were sheltering in, machete drawn, and lunged at the spirit. 

“Sokka!” Zuko jumped out the window after him, unarmed, with the sole purpose of dragging his stupid little brother out of harm’s way. 

Katara shrieked after him, but he ignored her in favour of grabbing Sokka-

-aaaand now they were both screwed, because the spirit had grabbed them and was running back into the forest. 

“Shit!” Sokka said. “Why’d you let this happen?”

_ “Me? You’re  _ the one who thought attacking a bloody spirit would be a good idea!”

“It would’ve been fine if you hadn’t tried to stop me!”

_ “It would’ve been fine if you’d let Aang do his spirits-damned job as the Avatar!”  _

Whatever Sokka’s response was, it was lost as the world suddenly flashed bright blue. 

The earthbenders were going to bring them to Ba Sing Se. 

The siege ended six years ago.

Lu Ten lost his arm  _ six years ago.  _ So why did the thought of returning to Ba Sing Se terrify him so much?

Sokka and the spirit were gone. 

Everything was blue, like the parkas everyone wore at home. 

“Hello, Zuko.”

Zuko whirled around. A woman, dressed in Fire Nation red with her hair half up in a top-knot, stood there, smiling softly at him. 

“I know you probably don’t recognise me-”

“You’re Ursa, aren’t you,” he said.

She startled. “Er - yes. How did you know?”

He shrugged. “You look like Azula, but older.”

“Ah. She’s doing well, by the way. She and the other Kyoshi Warriors have left their island to fight in the war.” Ursa looked wistful for a moment, before shaking herself. “But your sister is not why I’m here. You are.”

Zuko tilted his head to the side. “...Why?”

She cupped his face in her hands. They weren’t quite solid. “Because you’re my son, Zuko. I couldn’t be more thankful that Hakoda and Kya took you in, but some part of you will always be mine.”

Zuko stepped away from her. “Would that be the ashmaking part?”

Ursa flinched. “No. I wasn’t a firebender. You inherited that from my husband.”

Right. The nameless abusive husband. Zuko was positively  _ thrilled  _ to have something in common with that man. 

“Ashmaking or not, your firebending is important, Zuko,” Ursa said. “The world needs it. The world needs  _ you.”  _

“Well, it sure as hell doesn’t  _ want  _ me.”

_ Ashmaker,  _ Kya’s voice whispered in the back of his mind.  _ Monster.  _

“You’re the Light Bringer,” Ursa pressed. “Aang won’t be able to defeat the Fire Lord without you.”

Zuko crossed his arms. “I think he’d manage just fine with Sokka and Katara.”

“He’ll need to learn firebending-”

“And who’s gonna fucking teach him, huh? Me?! I can’t even firebend properly myself! And now the asshole who’s hunting Aang is hunting me, too!”

Ursa gazed at him sadly. “Go easy on Lu Ten. You don’t know what he’s been through.”

“Go easy -  _ go easy!  _ Why the  _ fuck  _ would I go easy on him? He’s not going easy on me! He’s not going easy on Aang! And he sure as hell doesn’t fucking know what we’ve been through!”

“He’s lost a great deal-”

_ “He’s  _ lost a great deal? Okay, so he’s missing an arm. Aang lost his entire people! All of his friends! I lost my eye! I lost my mother!  _ Both  _ of my mothers! My tribe lost all of its waterbenders except for Katara, and we very nearly lost her, too! And all the men have been fighting in the war for two years now, Tui only knows how many of them are still alive-”

“Hakoda and Bato fine.”

“They’re fine! Great! What about the rest of them? How many have we lost? How many of those men aren’t going to come home?”

Ursa wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “You and Lu Ten were quite close, back in the Fire Nation.”

Zuko scowled. “Oh, brilliant! Truly! The guy who wants to kill me used to be my friend, and neither of us remember each other!”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Ursa said softly. “I only wanted what’s best for you and your sister. I didn’t come here to argue, Zuko. I came here to tell you I love you more than life itself.”

“...Yeah. Oddly enough I think I knew that.” He gestured vaguely at her not-quite-solid form.

Ursa snorted, dissolving into giggles. 

Zuko stared at her for a solid ten seconds before dissolving into his own laughter. 

“Our time is short.” Ursa cupped his face in her hands again. “You are going to change the world, my darling, and I will be right there with you when you do.” 

She pressed her forehead to Zuko’s, and everything turned white. 

_ So close.  _ They’d gotten  _ so close  _ to escaping the earthbenders, thanks to Iroh’s odd but mostly effective plan to burn a soldier’s hands with the shackles around his wrists - Lu Ten honestly had no idea why that worked - but they were ultimately recaught.

The earthbenders were now deciding what to do to prevent another escape attempt. 

“You seem awfully quiet.”

Azula’s head shot up from where it had been staring at The Letter. Her girlfriend - her girlfriend! She had a girlfriend! She should be more excited! - offered her a questioning smile. 

“Everything okay, Princess?” Toki asked. 

Something that was decidedly not her Inner Flame made Azula feel all warm and mushy inside everytime Toki called her that. She sighed, shrugging. “Yeah. Mostly. Not really.”

Toki sat down beside her, a silent invitation to spill her guts.

“It’s just - Zuko’s birthday is in a couple of days. It’s on the solstice. And I’ve known about him for a few years now, but I  _ just  _ met him, like, two weeks ago, and we’ve already been separated again.” She rested her head on Toki’s shoulder. “And he did offer to take me with him, but it didn’t feel like the right step for me at the time. And I mean, if I  _ had  _ gone with him, I wouldn’t have ended up kissing you, so… I don’t regret staying…”

“You just wish you had more time with your big brother.”

Azula nodded. It was slightly difficult, given the current position of her head. 

Toki wrapped her arm across Azula’s shoulders. “You’ll see him again, Princess. That feeling you had that told you to stay with us? I’ve got it too, and it says you two are going to team up and the world won’t be able to handle it.”

“It’ll mostly be me, though.”

“Oh, for sure. From what I saw of him, Zuko’s a dumbass.”

Azula giggled and snuggled closer into Toki’s side. “Thanks… Mochi.”

Toki pulled away, an odd look on her face. “Mochi?”

“I was trying something! Besides, remember when we were seven-”

“That was  _ one  _ time!”

“...Do you not like it?”

Toki gently tugged Azula back against her. “It’s kinda cute. Like you.” She booped Azula’s nose. 

“You are  _ such  _ a prick.”

“That’s why you love me!”

“...Yes. Yes it is.”

The earthbenders were going to crush Iroh’s hands. They assumed, since he was missing an arm, that Lu Ten was harmless, and had chained his hand to Iroh’s shackles. 

Considering his arm had been chopped off by an Earth Kingdom soldier, Lu Ten was less than thrilled with the idea of Earth Kingdom soldiers breaking his dad’s hands. 

So, he did the only logical (if slightly irrational) thing. 

He set himself in a strong firebending stance and stomped on Iroh’s shackles. The chain snapped, and he watched with far too much glee as the earthbenders realised they were fucked. 

After the earthbenders fled, Iroh patted Lu Ten on his good shoulder and said, “I do believe a cup of tea is in order when we return to the ship.”

Lu Ten facepalmed. 

Zuko was in the village again. So was Sokka, along with an alarming large number of other people, who had presumably been taken by the spirit on previous nights. 

“Sokka! Zuko!” 

And then Katara was hugging them so tightly Zuko swore one of his ribs cracked. 

“So…” Aang said when Katara finally released them. “While I was in the Spirit World, I got a message from Avatar Roku. There’s this temple I need to go to on the solstice.” He paused, grimacing. 

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s in the Fire Nation, isn’t it,” he said. 

“How’d you know?”

“Roku was a firebender Avatar, why would a temple connected to him  _ not  _ be in the Fire Nation?”

Aang opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, then opened it again, then closed it again, before finally speaking. “That… actually makes a lot of sense.”

Zuko shrugged. “Contrary to popular belief, I can be smart when I want to be.”

“...How are we going to get there in time?” Katara asked. “The solstice is tomorrow. We’ll have to fly halfway across the world in less than twenty four hours.”

Aang’s brows furrowed determinedly. “We can do it.”

“Are you sure you really need to go to this temple?” Sokka asked the next morning, as Aang’s attempt to sneak off failed miserably. 

“But I  _ really  _ need to speak with Avatar Roku!” Aang said. “There’s something important he needs to tell me!”

Katara, Sokka, and Zuko exchanged glances.

“Okay,” Katara said, “but we’re going with you.”

“But-”

Zuko pressed his finger to Aang’s lips. “No buts. Either we’re going with you, or you’re not going at all.”

Aang pouted, but agreed. 

The leader of the village gave them some supplies, and essentially told them to get their asses on the road, or they’d never make it in time. 

Predictably, Aang tried to thank the man for the supplies, and was promptly shouted at to “GO!”

So they went. 

A mere hour after Sokka, Aang, Katara, and Zuko left, Lu Ten knocked on the village leader’s door. 

The man answered it quickly, and Lu Ten put on his best intimidating face.

He summoned a small flame in his palm and twisted it into the symbol of the Air Nomads. 

The village leader’s face paled. “He’s gone to Avatar Roku’s temple in the Fire Nation,” he blurted. “Please, spare my village!”

Lu Ten nodded. He knew which temple that was.

Something cold dropped onto Azula’s forehead. She jerked awake, nearly punching Toki in the face as she did so. 

“What time is it? Did I oversleep? Are we leaving?”

Toki laughed. “Calm down, Princess, you’re fine. We’re not going anywhere for a little while. Here.” She pressed something small and round - and  _ cold  _ \- into Azula’s hands. “Mochi. To celebrate your brother’s birthday.”

Azula stared at the ball of dough uncomprehendingly. Toki remembered that she felt bad about not being with Zuko on his birthday? And somehow acquired mochi for the occasion?

“...You just gonna stare at it?”

She lifted her eyes to meet Toki’s own wonderfully warm hazel ones. They had little flecks of gold and green in them, Azula noticed. It was kind of unfair, since the little flecks of gold and green amongst russet-y brown made Toki’s eyes devastatingly beautiful.

“I love you,” Azula whispered. 

Toki’s gorgeous eyes widened ever so slightly. It was the first time one of them had said that seriously, rather than jokingly like they had the other day. 

“I…” Toki’s gaze flitted to Azula’s lips. “I love you too.”

And then they were kissing. Azula wasn’t really sure how it happened, but it was over far too quickly. 

“We should eat our mochi before the filling melts,” Toki said. “Then we can pick up where we left off.”

Azula grinned and took a bite of her mochi. The frozen cream filling was so cold it made her teeth ache, but it was totally worth it. Mochi always was. 

Kissing Toki was also always worth it, but that was completely unrelated. 

Several hours after they left the village, Katara noticed a problem. “Look! It’s Lu Ten’s ship!”

Zuko cursed and resisted the urge to slam his head against the edge of Appa’s saddle. 

“I don’t think this is a good idea, Lu Ten,” Iroh said, a slightly pouting frown on his face. 

Lu Ten scowled at him. 

“Need I remind you of the terms of your banishment? You could be arrested for returning to Fire Nation waters.”

Lu Ten’s scowl intensified.

Iroh sighed. “You give my father too much credit…”

“They’re readying a catapult!” Katara shrieked. 

Moments later, a huge burning ball of…  _ something  _ hurtled towards them. 

Aang expertly guided Appa out of its way, but the flame nearly caught the tip of Appa’s tail. 

As the catapult was reloaded, Iroh and Lu Ten spotted a blockade ahead. 

“We are still in Earth Kingdom waters…” Iroh prodded. 

Lu Ten pointed forward, and the helmsman stayed the course. 

The blockade was firing on them, literally, and due to the number of ships, it would be a lot harder to dodge the projectiles. 

Zuko tucked his foot into one of the holes in Appa’s saddle and stood up, taking a deep breath. 

He’d redirected flaming projectiles before. How hard could it be to do it again?

...Very hard, he concluded as he stumbled due to a sudden turn to the left. And ducked to avoid an incoming ball of flame that would have flown over Appa but hit him in the head. 

One of the spirits-damned projectiles hit his ship. Lu Ten was livid. 

He was also certain that  _ Zhao  _ was in charge of the blockade, because the universe had apparently declared that today was not going to be a good day. 

“The engines are damaged!” someone shouted. “We’ll need to stop for repairs!”

Lu Ten glanced at the damaged portion of the hull, then to the Avatar’s bison, where the mysterious Water Tribe firebender was standing and redirecting some of the fireballs coming towards them. 

Was it worth risking his ship and the safety of his crew?

Oh,  _ fuck,  _ Zhao was on one of the ships up ahead. 

It was definitely worth it for that reason alone, Lu Ten decided, and gestured for the helmsman to continue staying the course. 

Two of the fireballs slammed into each other with a small explosion. The shockwave nearly knocked Zuko off his feet, but it did knock Sokka out of the saddle entirely. 

Zuko, naturally, wasn’t about to let his little brother fall, and he certainly wasn’t about to have another birthday ruined by the death of a family member (he pushed aside thoughts of Kya’s corpse, two weeks before he turned eleven), so he readjusted the way his foot was tucked into the saddle and then practically leapt out of the saddle to catch Sokka. 

Something popped in his ankle, but his grip on Sokka’s arm was firm, and Katara’s grip on his tunic was even more so. 

They managed to clamber back into the saddle right as an almost point-blank projectile was shot from one of the closest ships. 

Aang jumped off Appa’s head to destroy the incoming projectile with airbending, while Zuko stared at the commander of the ship. 

He had no idea who it was, but he had a feeling that man was much worse than Lu Ten. 

“We’re in the Fire Nation!” Aang cried excitedly as they cleared the blockade, landing back on Appa’s head. 

“Yeah,” Sokka said, visibly shaken. “Great.”

Katara poked at Zuko’s ankle. He hissed as her prodding sent a sharp pain up his leg, and Katara sat back with a grim expression. 

“You’ve definitely damaged something. I don’t know enough about ankles or the way you twisted and pressured yours to know what exactly, but you should try to avoid putting weight on it if you can. Until we can find a proper healer, we’ll treat it like it’s broken.” She rifled through the supplies from the village until she found bandages and some stiff material to make a splint. 

Zuko groaned.  _ This is just  _ perfect,  _ isn’t it?  _

The sun was beginning to sink below the horizon when they finally landed on the island where the temple was located. 

“You should stay here, Zuko,” Katara said. “This temple looks pretty big, so we’ll probably have to do a lot of walking.”

She was right. Zuko knew she was right. In the time between clearing the blockade and landing, Zuko’s ankle had puffed up to the point where the splint was almost painfully tight. 

It took all of his willpower not to argue as they entered the temple without him, because  _ they’re my baby brother and sister and who knows what’s in there waiting to kill them-  _

Zuko took a deep breath and summoned a flame in his hand. Might as well meditate, since he had nothing else to do. 

Lu Ten’s skiff landed on the shore of the island a short distance away from the Avatar’s bison. The Water Tribe firebender was sitting in the saddle, a small flame in his hands, and seemingly mesmerized by it. 

As he got closer, Lu Ten could hear the kid singing softly to himself. 

“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Dumbass… happy birthday to me.” The firebender sighed. “Well, I’m sixteen now. I just  _ had  _ to go and possibly break my ankle on today of all days, didn’t I?”

Lu Ten’s brain nearly short circuited. The kid turned sixteen?  _ Today?  _

It was exceedingly rare for children born on the Winter Solstice to be firebenders, due to the weakness of the sun during that time. 

Actually, it was pretty rare for anyone in the Fire Nation, benders or not, to be born on the Winter Solstice, now that he thought about it. 

His late cousin Zuko had been one of the few on record who were. 

...Zuko would be turning sixteen this year if he hadn’t been killed when he was three. 

Lu Ten shook himself. He was here for a reason. And the firebender had mentioned injuring his ankle… maybe Lu Ten could kill two airbenders with one flame. 

He stopped. Why the fuck was that a figure of speech? It was morbid and disrespectful to the dead. 

_ Focus, idiot,  _ he told himself.  _ You have a firebender and an Avatar to capture.  _

The plan was foolproof. At least, Sokka had thought it was. Trick the Fire Sages into thinking Aang was inside the chamber, then have them open it so Aang could  _ actually  _ get in while Sokka, Katara, and Shyu restrained the Sages. 

The door was open. Aang was supposed to be doing the “getting in” part. Why was he not doing the “getting in” part?

The answer came in the form of a royal pain in the ass and more than a little panic. 

Lu Ten emerged from behind a pillar, Aang held against his chest with his good arm and Zuko on his knees in chains beside them. 

The Sages took the opportunity to escape and take their captors captive instead, so now Sokka and Katara and Shyu were tied to pillars. The Sages then moved to close the doors, but Aang was one step ahead of them and managed to wriggle free and shoot through the doors as they shut. 

Lu Ten and the Sages tried to open the doors again, but it didn’t seem to be working. Sokka internally cheered. 

“Avatar Roku must not want us to enter,” the Sage with the fanciest hat said. 

There was a brief moment where everyone just kind of existed awkwardly before Lu Ten rounded on Shyu with a truly terrifying scowl on his face. 

“It once was - and still is - the duty of a Fire Sage to aid the Avatar,” Shyu replied. 

Lu Ten glared at him, but before anything else could happen, the commander guy from the blockade appeared. 

The commander guy smirked smarmily, and Sokka had the sudden urge to punch him. “Arrest Prince Lu Ten,” he said moistly. 

Several of his soldiers grabbed Lu Ten and chained him to yet another pillar - the temple was full of them. It was kind of ridiculous, especially since they didn’t seem to have any architectural use. 

Lu Ten’s glare was now directed at the commander guy. 

“If the Avatar is inside the chamber, then I shall simply wait.”

Spirits, could the guy’s voice be any more unsettling than it was?

“Commander Zhao-” one of the Sages started to say. Zhao cut him off with a  _ look.  _

Instead he turned his attention to Zuko, who was still on his knees, and tucked a finger under Zuko’s chin. “So this is the mysterious firebender who wears the clothing of barbarians.”

Sokka and Katara growled, and were ignored. 

“You’re not much to look at,” Zhao continued oozily, turning Zuko’s head to see his scars. “I assume you believe our people to be the enemy?”

Zuko growled more intimidatingly than Sokka and Katara had.  _ “Your  _ people  _ are  _ the enemy,” he spat. 

Zhao raised an eyebrow. “I see. Don’t worry, upon our return to the capital of our wondrous nation, you will be reconditioned to think correctly. These…  _ fantasies _ placed in your head by the savages that raised you will be removed.”

As angry as that statement made him, Sokka was somewhat relieved to see even Lu Ten looking disgusted by Zhao’s words. 

The doors of the chamber opened, and out stepped  _ Avatar fucking Roku.  _

What happened next was kind of a blur. 

There was a lot of fire. And some explosions. And Sokka definitely didn’t scream like a little girl at a pitch so high he didn’t know he was capable of reaching it. And Zuko had to hop to get to Appa, because if his ankle wasn’t broken before it definitely was now. And at some point Roku turned back into Aang, who was exhausted, and Katara practically carried him to Appa. And Momo somehow acquired the fanciest sage hat. 

Azula was warm, Toki noticed. She’d known before, since Azula was a firebender and she was naturally warmer than everyone else, but now that they were cuddling together (meaning Toki was lying half on top of her) and stargazing, it was more evident than ever. 

Before, Azula had just been warm. Now, though, Azula was  _ cosy.  _ And Toki  _ loved it.  _

So she mentioned this to the firebender in question, and she could hear the smile in Azula’s response. 

“I wouldn’t be half as cosy if I was cuddling with someone else, Mochi.”

Toki melted.  _ It was such a dumb nickname,  _ yet somehow it made her insides all mushy and soft. She had a feeling it was because it was Azula who said it. 

They lay in comfortable silence for a moment, mentally tracing out constellations, before Azula spoke again. Her chest vibrated under Toki’s head.

“You know, for some reason, I have this gut feeling that Zuko did something stupid today,” she announced in an amusingly disinterested tone. 

Toki smiled into Azula’s shirt. “Well, we  _ did  _ agree he was a bit of a dumbass earlier, did we not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Toki basically me because I'm kinda lowkey in love with Azula?  
> ...Maybe...
> 
> I was recently introduced to mochi and it's. It's so good??? There's a store near my school that sells the frozen ice cream-y kind (like what Azula and Toki were eating) and I was having a bad day yesterday so my friend and I bought some and I just. I felt so much better after? I don't think mochi has any right being as good as it is. 
> 
> Also, Biden was inaugurated today! I'm not even American and I'm excited about it!


End file.
